La Résistance
by spanglemaker9
Summary: In the darkest days of World War 2 in occupied Paris, Esme plays a dangerous game. The fates of both her country and her heart hang in the balance. A companion to Girl with a Red Umbrella, but stands alone.
1. Chapter 1

**This is a long introductory Author's Note, please bear with me. I won't always do this.**

Welcome to _La Résistance_, which is written as a companion to _Girl with a Red Umbrella_, which I co-author with justaskalice. But this can stand alone, in case you haven't read that. This is the story of Esme's experiences during World War 2. It will be much shorter than GwaRU, only seven chapters, give or take, and it's mostly written already.

I did a lot of research for this story, but that said, there are people who make careers out of researching World War 2, and I'm not one of them. However, if I mention a date, a place, a battle, an event, a troops location, it really happened.

Like I did for _Girl with a Red Umbrella_, there is a live journal page for this story with photos, research and music:

http:/resistance-esme(dot)livejournal(dot)com/

**I have some thank you's:**

Justaskalice, of course. This Esme is as much hers as mine, we created her and her back story together. I'm just telling it.

WriteOnTime, super-beta extraordinaire, who's endlessly patient with my bad punctuation.

And last (!) the disclaimer:

**Stephenie Meyer owns any Twilight characters that may appear in this story. The remainder is my original work. No copying or reproduction of this work is permitted without my express written authorization**.

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_May, 1941_

A wise man once said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Whenever Esme Benoit thinks of that night at the house in 1941, and she thinks of it many, many times over the years, she is reminded of that saying. Because, looking back, it was that night that marked the beginning; it was that night that started Esme on a journey she never could have imagined.

But on that night in May, one year after France signed its armistice with Germany, effectively handing them the country tied in a bow, Esme is not thinking of ancient eastern philosophers. She is also trying not to think about France and the war and more than anything, she is trying not to think about Germans.

The house is busy, smoky, loud. She supposes that some people might find the low thrum of chaos unsettling, upsetting. But for Esme the chatter of voices punctuated by bursts of laughter or shouts of an argument breaking out, all underscored with music, always music, is like a lullaby to her. She loves the house, this tall, slightly shabby grand dame of a Parisian townhouse, but she always finds it a bit sad when the house is empty. This house feels like _home_ when it is filled with people and their conversation and art and life.

The crowd may be sparser now than it was in its glory days before the war, but it still thrums with life and energy, and as Esme passes from room to room, bestowing warm smiles and slight touches on her many guests, she too feels alive, even though many old familiar faces are missing.

So many people have scattered to the winds in the face of the war that's swept through Europe. Things are hard all over France, but especially so in Paris. Esme is insulated somewhat from the privations, one of the many benefits of her vast network of friends and of course, the money fixes everything. But for most in Paris there is never enough food, there is no gas, no clothes, no shoes. Those who have the ability to travel and somewhere to go have left. Word has it things are not quite so bad in the countryside.

Yes, many have left to wait out the war in the countryside, but many more are just…gone. Amongst the many leftist artists, musicians and writers of Esme's wide acquaintance, there were those who spoke out against the German Occupation. They wrote articles for underground papers, they sent missives to magazines overseas, they spoke at rallies. And for their troubles, they were arrested and charged with treason. So many, Esme thinks nervously. So many talented, brilliant minds silenced, rotting away in Vichy prisons. There is no word from them, no way to even tell if they are alright.

Esme shakes off the anxiety and fear. It does them no good. The good Esme can do is here, in her house, preserving what she has built. A safe place for creative minds, a welcoming home, someplace where ideas meet and genius flows. This, she determines, will not be swept away by this godforsaken war.

The parlor is full, the conversation there lively and fierce, it needs no coaxing or help from her, so she glides past her guests there and back into the entryway where she encounters Aro, just shrugging out of his sharp trench coat.

"Aro, my love! I didn't dream that I would see you tonight! What a delightful surprise!" As Esme fusses over him, she gently divests him of his coat. Tati, the young maid, is there, arms outstretched silently to receive the coat as Esme reaches behind her and releases it. Aro, Aaron David to nearly everyone else in Paris, beams at Esme as he takes a moment to straighten his red silk ascot and brush off the lapels of his finely tailored gray wool pinstripe suit. Esme settles her hands on his shoulders and leans up on tiptoe to kiss his smooth high cheekbone. Her lipstick leaves a mark, which she tsks over as she tries to smudge it away with her thumb. Aro smiles indulgently at her before gently shooing her away and dealing with the lipstick with his own crisp white handkerchief.

"Esme, darling, how is it that when every man, woman and child in Paris is looking like a refugee, you just look more stunning every single time I see you?"

Esme rolls her eyes at his overblown compliment, but hooks her arm in his, pulling him after her into the dining room in search of liquor. Aro stops in front of the old streaked eighteenth century wall mirror with the ornate gold rococo frame and carefully smooths his slicked-down black hair.

"It's my wickedness that keeps me lovely," she says, lightly. "What are you drinking?"

"Do you have gin?"

She nods and fishes for the bottle amongst the large assortment on the sideboard.

"Oh, thank heavens. No one has gin these days. With tonic, please, my dear."

Esme fixes his drink and Aro sips it, letting out a dramatic moan of ecstasy.

"You have saved my life with this, my love."

Esme smiles at him, genuinely delighted to have him here. She loves every visitor to her home, but a few, like Aro, are close to her heart. This tiny circle is like family. Aro, poet and literary critic, has been a frequent visitor to Esme's house for over a decade. He was one of the first and he brought many others with him. Aro, and his revered opinion, helped create the myth of Esme Benoit, and as a result he is one of the few people who can claim to be truly close to the reality that is Esme Benoit. Aro met Esme before she was the woman she is today, when she was just a young girl, freshly escaped from the countryside and her abusive, loutish husband and looking to reinvent herself in Paris. Aro took her under his wing and showed her around. It was Aro who introduced her to the wealthy older man who eventually became her lover, who doted on her and showed her for the first time in her life what it was like to be cared for. It was his beneficence in his will that led to Esme's owning the house they now stood in. In many ways, Aro considered Esme amongst his greatest creations. She was, at least, the one he was most proud of.

"It's so crowded down here tonight, Aro," Esme says. "I want to talk to you, really talk. Come upstairs with me."

Aro takes just a moment to add another splash of gin to his glass, because who knows how long it might be until he enjoys another gin and tonic, before picking his way around the people perched casually along the stairs, up to the second floor. Esme is stopped momentarily on the second floor landing, by some artist who wishes to know what she thought of the exhibit at Salon des Prés last week. She gives her opinion, diplomatic but decided, generous and gracious but informed, before excusing herself. Aro notices, scattered amongst Esme's guests tonight, a handful of German soldiers in uniform. He raises his eyebrows but chooses to say nothing, at least for the moment.

She pulls Aro along up to the third floor. Esme's guests rarely wander as far as the third floor and it's here, facing away from the street, that Esme's boudoir lies. Aro has been here before, many times in fact. Other men have been here with Esme but she does not bring them here for quiet conversation. And Aro would never be here for anything else with Esme. He suspects that it's this, the fact that he will never desire her sexually, that has made them so close. Esme has spent her life desired and in many ways it's worked well for her, in many ways she likes it. But she also likes being able to forget her beauty and allure and Aro lets her do that.

Esme curls herself gracefully down onto a small loveseat with gold brocade upholstery and Aro settles in next to her. She folds a leg up underneath her so that she can face him and he angles his long lanky body to mirror her. The minute he sits down, the fatigue catches up to him and his head lolls back on the gold carved back. Esme notices immediately.

"Aro, love, you are exhausted."

"Just too much work, Esme."

"The magazine is so busy?" she says, eyebrows raised. The tiny avant-garde literary magazine that he works for hardly requires backbreaking labor from him, she knows this.

"No, not the magazine. I've been helping…you know….the war." Aro is deliberately cagey in his response. These days, nothing is spelled out.

Esme rarely engages in these discussions of the war and the opposition, but tonight she sits up straighter and her eyebrows draw together. "What are you up to?"

"Just some writing," he says, "For some of the underground newspapers."

"Oh, Aro, be careful! They can arrest you for that! Why do you take these risks?"

"Because somebody has to, Esme. Somebody needs to stand up and say something."

"But what if they come after you?"

He relaxes a little and smiles, to reassure her, because her expression is frantic. "Don't worry, love. If it gets too hot here in Paris, maybe I'll go stay with my old auntie in Lorraine. She makes cheese. It will be delightful."

It does the trick, the image makes Esme laugh out loud.

"Maybe I'll roll up my sleeves and get right down in there with the hairy old goats." Aro holds his pale manicured hands out in front of him, examining his fingernails. Esme laughs harder. "Oh, so picturing me with my auntie's goats is funny, is it?" he laughs, too.

"Aro," she waves a hand helplessly in front of her, trying to control her laughter, "you have no idea..."

"Well, I'm glad I could amuse you my dear."

Esme takes a few deep breaths to get herself under control. "So, aside from poking at the government with a stick to make it mad, what else have you been up to? What about Marcus? Is he still causing you worries?"

Aro rolls his eyes dramatically. "Don't even mention his name!" he cries.

"So it's all over then?"

"Completely. He's such a scared little boy. I understand the need to be…discreet. Especially in the wider world. But if one can't at least be honest with oneself, then there really is no hope."

"What do you mean?" Esme presses him.

"He's been taking out some woman. A girl, really. Nineteen, from a good family."

"Ah," Esme intones in understanding. "Poor girl. That can only end badly. He can't lie to himself forever."

"Precisely. But it's no longer any concern of mine."

"And there's no one new for you?"

Aro turns his head on the back of the couch to smile wearily at her. "Romance has been low on my list of priorities these days. Who has time for love?"

"Aro!" Esme lightly taps his arm and says decidedly, "There's nothing more important."

"Ha! Says you!"

"Why, what do you mean?" Esme draws herself up slightly at his laughter.

"Esme Benoit, who has never been in love and probably never will be," Aro says, but not unkindly.

Esme takes a moment to consider his words. It's true that she's never been in love. She's a great believer in it, a lover of love, as it were. She loves love if for nothing else than for its ability to inspire and direct great art. It draws out the best in people, and for that she loves it. But love, the romantic, hearts-afire kind? No, she's never known it and now that Aro has put such a fine point on it, she can't actually imagine herself ever feeling such an innocent, girlish emotion. She's had many lovers and some she has cared for a great deal, but love? No. That kind of love, the kind Aro means, requires faith and trust. Esme may have once been able to have faith and trust in a man when she was very young, but those days are long gone for her. He's probably right, she decides with a shrug, she will never be in love. She is not particularly saddened by this thought.

"Alright, you have a point. But just because there will be no great love in my life doesn't mean that I can't wish for it for those I care for. You, my dear Aro, are designed to love deeply."

Aro shakes his head sadly. "This world is unkind to lovers at the moment. One should not love in a time of war. It's just asking for heartbreak."

"Oh, to hell with the war!" Esme says, with as much venom as she is ever wont to use, which is not much.

"Don't let your Nazi soldiers downstairs hear you say that," he says with a sly sidelong glance.

Esme makes a face. "Bah! Cretins, every one of them. Their leaders denounce us, call us degenerates, but they all want to be here, right in the thick of things, in the heart of the degeneracy. But they cause no trouble, so I let them stay. Who knows? Maybe a few nights here will broaden their horizons, and then they won't be such dreadful bores."

Aro narrows his eyes, studying her carefully. She is dismissive of them, but there is no fear, only scorn. This worries him. "Be careful, my love. They are the enemy, and a very dangerous enemy at that. Always remember that. This is a war."

Esme sighs heavily and waves a hand absently through the air as she fishes out her cigarette case from the tiny table next to the loveseat. Aro leans forward instinctively with his matches. Once her cigarette is glowing, she leans back and examines him through the smoke. She flicks a long dark red nail against the tip of her tongue to remove a speck of tobacco.

"It's all just politics, Aro. And you know I don't get involved in politics."

"With all due respect, love, a war is a good deal more than just politics. Even you must acknowledge that."

"Not at all. Just men…boys, really…acting out their silly games on a much bigger scale. They plan their battles on their little maps and halfway across Europe people starve and die. Boys playing with their toy soldiers. Just like all of them."

"Yes, but these boys are dangerous. More than I think the world has seen before. We are all in peril."

"Oh, Aro, what makes you so melancholy tonight? Yes, things are unspeakably dreary right now, but surely it can't last forever. Soon they will leave us in peace and things will go back to the way they were."

Aro turns to her more fully, examining her face long and hard.

"This time is different, Esme. Please take care. And be cautious with the Germans, do promise me."

She is taken aback slightly by his seriousness, his obvious concern.

"Of course, Aro, my love. Anything for you."

"You don't know what you're dealing with," he continues, earnestly. Then he recovers himself, his usual insouciance, and leans back on the couch with a smirk. "Although why I worry is beyond me. If there's a woman in Paris who can handle the Nazis, it will be Esme Benoit."

At the time, Esme just laughs her low throaty laugh and drinks her gin. But Aro's words, her dear, lost Aro, come back to her many times over the intervening years. His warning will haunt her.

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_March, 1942_

Esme stands in front of the window of what used to be her favorite lingerie shop. Over the years, all her favorite delicate, lacy confections have come from this shop and Madame Giselle with her impeccable taste. Esme knows she should go in and say hello, she hasn't seen Madame Giselle in ages, but if she goes in she will be confronted with the fact that the shelves are bare, that there is nothing to buy. There is no silk for clothes, it's all taken for the war. No lace, either. Nothing gets in from Belgium, even the lace. And stockings? Forget them. No one has had stockings for a year, at least.

So Esme simply checks her lipstick in her reflection, adjusts her dark red kid gloves a bit, and moves on. The streets are quiet. Not empty, but quiet. It is late March, not yet spring, but it's in the air. The cold bite is gone, as well as the damp chill. Normally it's the kind of weather that can lift the spirits, as one can finally begin to sense the end of winter and the return of sun and warmth.

This year, however, the sun and warmth will bring little of comfort with them. France will stay bleak and spiritless. The war drags on, grows worse. Paris suffers, but they are almost used to the privations now, the lack of anything decent to eat, the lack of clothes, fuel. It is a dreary familiarity, but it has become familiar. In addition to the bitterness of daily life, there is the unrelenting bad news. Official reports are so slim. The Nazis control the papers, the radio, so much so that it's hardly worth listening to. One can't trust what one hears there, so what's the point? One has to rely on rumors, stories spread between neighbors on the streets, whispered over the sparse, rotten produce at the markets.

The stories…they are horrific. So bad that Esme knows a full two-thirds, maybe more, are nothing but gruesome fantasy. The French have grown weary and resentful of the occupiers and have taken to painting them in the very blackest imagery possible. The rumors about them pass from person to person and grow exponentially worse with every retelling. This is what accounts for tales of horror so grim that the old fairy tales pale in comparison.

However, it's not as if she's necessarily fond of the Nazis. She's hardly eager to defend them. The officers stationed in Paris spend so many of their evenings at her house that they've scared away nearly all that remained of her old friends. She sees almost no one from the old days any more. More have fled, more have been arrested. Any still left free in Paris don't want to socialize with the Germans, so they stay away. And Aro, she hasn't seen Aro in…what? Esme pauses on the sidewalk as she calculates and realizes that it's been ten months since she's seen Aro. How is that possible? It's so easy to get lost in the day-to-day trials and small struggles. Time just slips away. He must have gone to stay with his aunt in Lorraine after all. The thought of him amongst her goats makes her smile.

As she looks around herself at the waning light reflecting off the buildings, she realizes that the hour is growing later and she needs to get home. Guests will arrive soon and someone must be there to greet them. Esme is saddened to realize that for the first time in her life, the thought of a house full of company does not make her happy. She is only filled with weariness at the thought of the night ahead. They will be polite, to be sure, but she will find no enjoyment in the conversation. It will all just be a tedious chore. And she'll have to speak German all night. She'd spoken a little at the start of the war, but over the course of the past year, spending so much time entertaining the officers, she's been forced to become fluent. And of all the languages to learn, German has no beauty to her ear.

She thinks, not for the first time, that maybe she should leave for the country like Aro. Perhaps the time has come to close up the house and take a little farmhouse in another province. She will go mad in the quiet of the country, of this she is sure, but it could hardly be worse than this, this mockery of her old life through which she shuffles every day.

Esme turns the familiar corner onto Rue de Jardinier, where her beloved gold house waits at the end. She takes only a few steps towards it when she sees Gérard lounging on his mother's front steps, smoking in the shadows of the building. Esme sighs deeply and steels herself for the inevitable nasty comments. Gérard is a grown man, too old to still be living with his mother. He disappears for long periods of time, either gone to jail for some petty offense or mixed up in some other sort of mischief. But when he is out of money with nowhere else to go, he descends again on his poor, besieged mother. When here, he spends his days smoking and lounging on the steps and his nights drinking and seeking out more trouble. For years he has lusted after Esme and made no great secret of it. She is repulsed by him. He's a dirty, rude, ignorant boor and she's made no attempts to hide her disdain. Her haughty dismissals of his vulgar propositions only make him bolder, however. His beady eyes are on her from the moment she turns the corner. He looks drunk already. His white undershirt is filthy and sweat-stained and too small for his bulging gut, and his ruddy face is shadowed with his dark black stubble. His hair is a greasy slick across his forehead.

"Well, well, if it isn't _Madame Benoit_," he drawls as she approaches. He always layers her name with sarcasm, as if there is some great joke to be found in calling her Madame. He has made thinly-veiled aspersions in the past about her, that she's not really married, that she's actually running some sort of bordello in her house. If only he knew how happy she'd be to call herself Mademoiselle…

"Good evening, Gérard," she says curtly, eyes averted. She never calls him monsieur. In her mind, it's a gesture of respect, and he has earned none from her. It's also her way of reminding him that he's a good deal younger than her, and that she's friends with his mother. It never has any affect on his behavior.

"Off to host another one of your little _soirees_, I take it?" he sneers, throwing his cigarette butt to the ground.

"I have some guests coming over soon, yes. So if you'll excuse me…"

"Always so snooty."

"Pardon?"

"You. Prancing up and down this street in your fine clothes with your nose in the air for all these years, like no one's good enough to touch you."

Esme draws herself up, eyes narrowed. She is a small woman, but when she is angry, she is a sight to behold. "How on earth a sainted woman like your dear mother was able to produce such a worthless piece of vermin is beyond me, Gérard. You should be ashamed of yourself. You besmirch her good name."

Gérard's face contorts with rage and he takes a step towards her. Esme doesn't budge. Fear is not an emotion she often indulges in, not anymore. When she does not cower, just continues to fix him with her furious stare, he pauses and that's all Esme needs to regain control of the confrontation.

"Why don't you make yourself useful to her for once and clean up that mess?" she flings an imperious gloved finger at his cigarette butts littering the front stoop before she turns on her heel and continues on towards her house.

"Things are changing, missy, you mark my words," he shouts after her. "This new government, they put a value on men like me, men who can do something for them. It's stuck up little tramps like you who'll pay!"

Esme sighs and shakes her head, but doesn't look back or acknowledge him again in any way. Once inside, Tati greets her at the door to take her coat, gloves, and bag. Esme smooths her hair in the front hall mirror and looks hard at her reflection. The country. Maybe it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Esme's resolution to close up the house and move to the country is only given further reinforcement after spending an evening entertaining her German guests. They are gracious enough, she supposes, and the officers always make sure a case of wine or champagne is delivered to her house, along with some other otherwise-unavailable delicacy, chocolates or caviar, to thank her for her hospitality.

But she cannot bear the quality of their conversation, regardless of their consideration. There is no more talk in this house of art or music, unless it's some ignorant officer waxing rhapsodic about Wagner, simply because his Führer adores the composer. Their talk is nothing but tedium, their presence nothing but a trial for her. No, as much as it breaks her heart to contemplate, she must close the house, take Tati and rent a little farmhouse somewhere.

She is thinking on this as she stands in the dining room at the bar. She's deciding what to drink while she decides where to go. The Loire Valley? She was born there, but she hasn't been back since she escaped at seventeen. There are probably too many bad memories there, she decides. Perhaps Provence, then, where they grow the lavender and the olives. That could be nice…

"Paris is nice and all," she hears the young German officer behind her telling his friend, "But it's just so quiet here. Feels like we've been put out to pasture a long way out of the action. My brother's in Africa, and they're going to Egypt! Now _he's_ going to see some action, let me tell you!"

His companion goes on to point out to his friend all the ways in which Paris is superior to North Africa, but Esme has stopped listening to them. She's not sure why his words have caught her attention. In and of themselves they mean nothing to her. So what, the boy has a brother in Africa? Why should this matter to her? But at the same time, she can't let go of the tiny fact. Africa…going to Egypt.

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_May, 1942_

Esme stands quietly at the bookseller's stall, absently looking over the titles. She doesn't need any more books, of that she is certain. But she continues to linger and read the newspaper headlines over the shoulder of the man standing next to her. It's about the attack on the German headquarters at Arras. It's nearly impossible to sort out the truth, it's all a lot of chest-thumping and propaganda. The article makes it sound as if an army marched on a poor, defenseless lightly-manned outpost. But Esme has heard the whispers on the streets. It was the Resistance. It was stealthy and quick and they destroyed the German headquarters single-handedly. When talk of the Resistance began, she hardly gave it credence. A bunch of ragtag revolutionaries fighting off the Nazis from basements and farmhouses? It seemed noble, but ill-advised and ultimately hopeless.

But they've taken out the German headquarters at Arras. No one speaks of it out loud, but everyone knows that's how it happened. The streets of Paris are abuzz with the news. Esme thinks of buying the paper to read it in more detail, but it will just be more lies, so there's hardly any point. She's desperate to know the whole story, though, even if she can't say why.

She's absently turning over an old edition of _A Thousand and One Nights_ when she hears a familiar voice behind her.

"Esme Benoit?"

She turns to see Caius Faubourgh, whom she has not laid eyes on in months and months. He used to be a frequent visitor at the house, but that was before. He's one of the many who stopped coming. Since he's here in Paris, she has to assume it's the Germans who keep him away.

Caius is a huge man, well over six feet, and massively barrel-chested. He slouches a good deal, the product of being an overly-large man in a too-small world. He's always rumpled, wrinkled jacket hanging like a sack from his shoulders, shirt unbuttoned at the neck, wilted tie sloppily knotted and loosened. He has a short beard, now laced with grey that didn't used to be there. His sandy hair is swept away from his face, and his hairline, Esme notices, has crept back since she last saw him. His round, wire-rimmed glasses seem far too small for his face and are perched, slightly crooked, on the end of his nose.

As she turns to look up at him, a loose, lazy grin splits his face.

"It_ is_ you. Esme, you look magnificent."

"Caius! It's been months! Where have you been hiding yourself?" Esme leans up impulsively to kiss his cheek, because she really is delighted to see him. He's a writer, absolutely brilliant. His novels hardly sell anything, but she has them all, autographed by him. He's a genius whose time has not yet come. It's what she's always told him.

"Oh, here and there, you know?" his eyes shoot away from her as he answers and land briefly on the newspaper to her side. His gaze focuses minutely.

"What are you writing these days?"

"Writing?" he looks back to her, puzzled, as if the thought were entirely foreign. "I'm not writing at all right now. Far too busy."

"Too busy for your art? This is what happens when you stay away from my house too long, Caius," she teases gently. "You lose your way."

"Yes, well, I'm not exactly fond of your new guests."

Esme's smile drops away and she waves a hand. "It's not as if they were invited, Caius. And one can't exactly turn them away."

Caius's expression softens and he reaches out to squeeze her arm lightly. "I know, Esme. I do miss the old days there. How is everyone?"

"I can hardly tell you. No one comes around anymore. So many people have left town."

Caius looks at her closely, eyes slightly narrowed. "Left or been taken?"

Esme stares back. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you hear the stories."

She scoffs and waves a hand. "I hear rumors and whispers. I hear people letting their imaginations run away with them. Honestly, Caius, you can't possibly give credence to these crazy rumors floating about, can you?"

Caius looks at her for a long silent moment. When he speaks again, his voice is slower, measured. "Esme, will you come and have a coffee with me? Do you have time?"

"Of course, darling. I'd like nothing better."

Caius takes her elbow and they make their way to a café nearby. The day is warm enough that they sit outside on the sidewalk. Esme starts to settle at one table, but Caius pulls her past it, to one at the farthest edge of the seating area, one table in from the people streaming past. Caius flags the waiter and orders two coffees. There is not much on the menu in the way of food, but Esme waves off his offer to order something.

Caius's eyes flit nervously around them. Esme notices and it makes her nervous. She's never seen him so keyed up, his ordinary demeanor is so relaxed. He seems to be ensuring that they are alone.

"Caius, is something wrong?" she finally asks, after the waiter has left their coffees.

His jumpy eyes cut back to her and he looks at her intently for a long moment, his fingers drumming lightly on the table. "When did you last see Aaron David?" he finally asks.

The question seems so innocuous as to be completely out of place with his current mood.

"Last May. He's gone to stay with his aunt in Lorraine."

"You've heard from him?" Caius's voice is disbelieving.

"Well, no. You know how hard it is to get a letter through to anywhere these days. When I last saw him he said he might go stay there. Since I hadn't heard from him I just assumed…"

Esme found herself trailing off, unable to finish the thought under Caius's fierce, unwavering gaze.

"He's not in Lorraine, Esme," he finally says softly.

"What do you know?" Esme's voice is faint and slightly breathless. She is suddenly cold all over, there is something bad, something black, just around the corner ahead of her which must be faced.

"The stories, the rumors…every wretched, horrible thing you've heard…it's all true. All of it and worse."

Esme leans back slightly. Caius leans forward, arms on the table. He drops his voice to a slight murmur, so only she can hear.

"I've been working with the Resistance. Many people from the old days have been. Aaron was."

"I…I knew he was doing some writing…" her sense of dread grows stronger as she realizes that Caius is speaking about Aro in the past tense and she just did as well.

"Yes, yes. Writing and more. It mattered so very much to him, you see. In light of what they were doing."

"They?" Esme repeats. She feels slow and flat-footed in this conversation, as if there is a lot she doesn't understand. She doesn't like the feeling, but at the same time, some prickling premonition is telling her that she doesn't want to know. "The Nazis? What they're doing?"

Caius shoots one more urgent look around him before leaning in closer. "The deportations of the Jews… the camps, it's all true. They're killing them."

"No." The word is nothing more than a whisper forced involuntarily from her lips, a willing away of the thing she feels bearing down on her.

"I've talked to men who've seen it with their own eyes. The bastards have a plan, Esme. They want to kill them all."

"But…but here in France…" she's desperate to believe that this, France, her home, could not be a party to this.

"Here, too. They're already taking them."

"Aro?" her hand flies to her mouth to cover the scream that wants to escape.

Caius leans back slightly and pauses, watching her. "They arrested him last August, took him from his house in the middle of the night. They sent him to Drancy."

She knows the name Drancy. It was the prison camp they'd just built outside Paris, for the ones accused of treason, that's what the Nazis told the Parisians.

"And he's there now?"

Caius shakes his head sadly. "Sent on to Auschwitz by now," he murmurs softly. "Of course, there's no way to know for certain. They won't tell you, and if you ask, they'll arrest you, too."

Esme can't speak or respond in any way. She is thinking, remembering her last night with Aro at her house, his head leaning back on the sofa as he smiled his louche smile at her. It's all she can see in this long, screaming moment.

"Esme," Caius continues urgently, softly, leaning forward again, "you are in the belly of the beast now. You must remember that." Then he leans back abruptly, looking around himself, "I should go. We've spoken too long as it is. People might talk. Take care of yourself, my dear." He carefully unfolds his massive body from the tiny café chair and taps the table twice in farewell. Esme can only watch his shape recede down the sidewalk before he disappears into the crowd.

For a long time she does nothing. Her hands are on the table before her, her fingers spread wide. Her mind simply runs back through everything she's heard for the past several months, every rumor, every whispered, far-fetched, unbelievable accusation, and she looks at them with new eyes. "I've talked to men who've seen it with their own eyes." That's what Caius said. "It's all true. They're killing them." And what she's heard…people packed into trains like cattle, camps, starvation, gas chambers, women and children, too….She closes her eyes at the imagined horrors. But they are not imagined. They are real. Happening right now.

Esme feels a dark black line being drawn through her life, straight through this moment. Forever there will be everything that came before this, when such things, such monstrosities were too much to believe, when horrors like this only existed in fairy tales. And there will be everything that comes after, when it is all true, when men have proven themselves to be blacker than she ever thought possible. She thought she knew, she thought she understood first-hand how wicked, how depraved men could be. But this…this is evil that she can scarcely comprehend. It's happening far away in Germany, but Caius said it's happening here…right here in Paris.

Aro…Esme gasps and the dam breaks as she remembers Aro and what Caius told her. Drancy…then some place called Auschwitz. She begins to moan. She would weep, but this is too raw, her emotions too feral. She just curls on herself and rocks and wails softly, her hands fisted against her chest, blind to the world around her. No one pays her any mind. Times are hard. People weeping on the streets is not an unusual sight. Aro, she thinks, his name repeating in her head as the reality comes crashing down. Taken, most likely dead by now. She clamps her hands down hard over her mouth to hold back the screaming that's struggling to get out.

Esme loses track of how long she sits there. She loses track of her very existence in that long moment of reckoning. But she's a strong woman and although part of her wishes her mind would just snap so she didn't have to face this for another minute, she knows it won't. She will remain whole, she will have to carry on, she will have to decide what to do. Because in that moment, it is perfectly clear that she will do something. She cannot turn her head and choose to go back into ignorance. That is impossible for her. No, this, this bitter knowledge she has gained today will change her forever, of that much she's certain, even if the details are not entirely clear.

She sits at the café until the Esme she knows reappears. There is still a day to get through, there are still guests to be dealt with tonight…her blood runs cold. Nazis. They will be in her home tonight. They've been in her home for a year. She feels ill, truly ill, as she thinks of all the nights she has talked and laughed with them. Did they know? Did they all know what was happening? The horrors break on her afresh. Did one of them take Aro? Did they pick him out at her house and target him?

She doesn't know what she will do. How can she go home and face them? How can she smile and open her door to those monsters? Caius's words ring in her head. "You are in the belly of the beast now." Indeed. But if she bars them from the house, what then?

Esme is a smart woman, cool and collected, even under duress. It only takes her a moment to calm herself down and examine the situation dispassionately. Tonight, unless she does something extremely reckless, like publicly denouncing them, the Nazis will be at her door, demanding her hospitality. They will come and drink her wine and play her records and talk. Talk.

"_Africa…going to Egypt."_

The young officer's words of a few weeks back whisper in her head again. They would come and talk. And they just might say things that were useful, things that they should not. That young officer, he said his brother was on the move to Egypt soon. Does that mean the Germans were about to invade, to try to take Egypt back from the Allies? Do the Allies know this?

What if _she_ tells them?

It takes Esme a full minute of quiet contemplation to comprehend what she was considering doing. She could spy on them. She could let the filthy bastards keep coming, she could smile and let them drink her wine…and she could listen. She will need someone to pass on what she's heard. Caius…she stands unthinkingly, scanning the crowd in the direction he'd gone. But of course, that was hours ago now, back before her whole world was changed.

The Resistance. Caius said there were a lot of people she knew working for them. She will have to make discreet inquiries, find someone who can help her. She knows that if they find her out she might meet a fate worse that Aro's. But she also knows that she no longer cares. Let them do their worst. To sit by while this evil, this sick madness unfolded all around her is unthinkable. And she is no soldier; she has no guns and knives to attack with. So she will use the weapons she does have, the ones she's spent her whole life honing, apparently to be used in this one grim moment in time; her beauty, her charm, her powers of persuasion. It will require the performance of a lifetime. She simply hopes she can be good enough.


	2. Chapter 2

There is a new live journal entry up for this chapter:

http://resistance-esme(dot)livejournal(dot)com/

**Stephenie Meyer owns any Twilight characters that may appear in this story. The remainder is my original work. No copying or reproduction of this work is permitted without my express written authorization**.

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Esme approaches Café Flore the next day and is hit with an uncharacteristic attack of nerves right before she is set to walk in. So much so that she has to take a step back away from the door and circle the block once before she can try again. She casts furtive glances around herself as she approaches for the second time, although if anyone were really watching her, she doubts she would realize it.

Finally she gets angry with herself, because she has never been the sort of woman to shy away from difficult situations. Besides, how on earth can she hope to follow through with the rest of it if she can't find the courage to make this initial inquiry? After all, this is just Café Flore. She knows everyone here. They are all old friends. She is stopping in to say hello, nothing more. Why should that be any cause for concern?

One more steeling deep breath and she enters. She knows Pierre, who's standing behind the bar, lazily wiping glasses. And she knows Charlotte, the waitress, who is leaning on the bar, chatting with Pierre. The place is nearly empty. This is partly because Esme has chosen to come at three, well after the lunch rush, but before the dinner crowd. And partly it's because all the restaurants are nearly empty these days.

She walks straight back to the bar, smiling at Pierre and Charlotte.

"Esme Benoit!" Pierre smiles, looking up from the glasses. "It's been too long!" he reaches across the bar and takes Esme's gloved hand, kissing it gallantly. Esme turns to Charlotte, pulling her close and kissing her on both cheeks. "What brings you to us today, my dear?"

"I was walking by and realized how long it's been since I've seen my old friends here. I thought I'd stop for a Kir Royale and we could catch up a little."

Pierre and Charlotte smile and accept her story without question. Pierre makes a fuss over her, getting down one of the cut crystal glasses he saves for people's wedding celebrations before pouring her a Kir. Charlotte bustles around her, wiping down the counter, asking her if she'd like a bowl of nuts, or maybe olives. Esme declines it all, she just accepts her Kir and sips delicately. She asks all the expected questions, she asks about Maxim, Pierre's boss and another old friend. She asks after Pierre's mother, who she recalls is in bad health. The conversation is easy and superficial, comparing notes on who has seen who, who is in town. They skirt all mention of those who have inexplicably vanished.

Without missing a beat or changing her tone in any way, Esme says, "You know, speaking of old friends, I ran into Caius Faubourgh yesterday."

Pierre's expression never changes, but Esme thinks she notices him hesitate just a moment before responding.

"Oh? And how is Caius?"

"The same as he always is, dear man. Maybe looking a little older, just like all of us!" Esme says lightly. _This is_ _it_, she thinks, _it's now or_ _never_. "He's such a dear man. I have a little problem, I find myself in need of a consultation about a certain matter, and he was so helpful in suggesting just who I ought to see."

Esme stops there, lets it hang in the air. Pierre says nothing for a moment, he keeps his eyes on the bar, which suddenly requires his full attention.

"Is that so?" he finally says. "I'm glad he could help you out." And nothing else. He does not meet her eyes, he gives her no clues that any other information might be forthcoming. Although as she watches him carefully, she is sure he is refraining from saying something. She is new to all this, this subterfuge, this coded language, and she has no idea how far she can go, how explicit she can be. So she leaves off, inwardly dejected, already flipping through her friends in her mind, determining who she should speak with next.

"Well, well, my friends, I really must be going. So many things to attend to." Esme slides off the bar stool and slips her gloves back on before retrieving her bag. "It was so lovely to visit with you both. Pierre, do send my regards to your lovely mother."

He smiles at her then, awkwardly, "I'll do that, Esme. Thank you. She always did like you."

"And I adore her. Take care of yourself, Pierre, Charlotte."

Esme gives them each a smile and a tiny nod of the head before turning for the exit. She is nearly out the door when Charlotte's voice stops her.

"Esme! Your handkerchief!" Charlotte is hurrying towards her, a wrinkled little handkerchief clutched in her fist…a handkerchief that Esme is sure is not hers. But she turns and beams a flawless smile at Charlotte. When Charlotte reaches her, Esme takes the handkerchief and pulls Charlotte in close to kiss her cheek. As Charlotte's smooth, pale cheek is pressed to her own, Esme hears her frantic whisper in her ear.

"The catacombs. Go tonight after nine. Tell them I sent you."

Then Charlotte is leaning back and when Esme sees her face, there is not a single indication that anything at all had passed between them other than a grateful farewell between friends. Esme keeps her game smile in place until she is well away from Café Flore. The catacombs. Of all the vile places. Of course they would be meeting down there. Who else on earth would venture there except a bunch of desperate renegades? It seems somehow fitting; those marked for death mingling around down there with the centuries of Parisians already dead. Esme chooses not to dwell any further on the morbid overtones of this train of thought.

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She realizes almost immediately that she's worn all the wrong things. She chose her crisp brown tweed suit because it wouldn't show dirt, but the skirt is tight and narrow. As soon as she finds the tiny door at the street level, she's confronted with an endless rickety spiral staircase down into the dark and the skirt is a hindrance. Trousers would have been smarter, although Esme abhors them. She's also wearing her lovely tan suede pumps and the ground, when she finally reaches it, is nothing but packed dirt. They'll be ruined for sure.

Now that she's down here, she realizes that she's never been before. Parisian children come here, they like to scare each other with stories of ghosts and skeletons come to life. But Esme was an adult when she arrived in Paris. She knew of the catacombs, of course, and she even had a vague sense of where the entrance was, but she's never come. She was smart enough, however, to bring her tiny emergency lantern, which she needed the second she stepped off the street.

She's somewhat surprised that no one met her as she stepped off the street, or at least at the bottom of the stairs. But there is no one, no sign of life. The air is cool and musty and still and there is not a hint of light from anywhere. It is unremittingly dark in every direction and absolutely silent. She wonders if perhaps Charlotte was wrong about the night. Or if maybe the meeting was cancelled and she didn't know. Considering the circumstances, it would be hard to communicate with everyone.

Her lantern tells her that there is a long passageway straight ahead of her and with no other options, she follows it. It leads to a tiny room and another tunnel and she spies writing over the entryway. Raising her lantern to light it, Esme reads the words carved into the marble lintel mounted over the tunnel. "_Arrête, c'est ici l'empire de la Mort_". She has to clamp a hand over her mouth to stop the laughter, for it's so ridiculous and melodramatic and appropriate that she can hardly bear it. Aro would have seen the humor, she thinks briefly, before shoving aside that destructive memory.

She walks for several long minutes, only able to see the tiny arc of packed earthen tunnel picked out in the weak flicker of light. More than once she makes up her mind that this is all a colossal mistake and she's going to turn around and go back home, but each time she decides to go another fifty feet first. Then she hears it. Muffled voices far up ahead. So they are down here. She walks on, making no attempt to be quiet or douse her light. Better that they should know that she's coming than she should burst on them and surprise them down here.

"Someone's coming!"

"Shit!"

"Run out the east tunnel!"

"Too late. We'll never make it to the surface!"

The murmurs echo in the dark tunnel.

"I'm not with the Nazis!" Esme barks into the dark, to halt their frantic flight.

There is silence ahead of her and she keeps going. Light begins to grey out the tunnel around her, eventually refining itself into a subtle glow coming from an opening off the left of the tunnel ahead.

"Who are you?" The voice comes at her again, louder now that she is closer.

"Esme Benoit," she replies, uncertain if it's the right thing to do to use her real name. But she's in too deep to try to protect herself now so there's no sense in worrying about it.

There is silence again as she closes the distance. When she finally turns out of the tunnel, into the tiny, low ceilinged earthen room, she squints against the light, even though it's only one flickering kerosene lantern. She takes a moment to observe the three people she finds there as they observe her. It's a woman and two men. The woman is probably close to Esme's age, although far less smartly decked out. She's wearing a pair of baggy tan men's trousers and an oversized men's jumper. Her dark hair is scraped back off her forehead and her hands are ink-stained. She might have been attractive in the right clothes and with her hair done. There is something slightly familiar about her eyes and Esme thinks she must have been at the house on some night or other. But the woman's expression is studiously blank as she takes in Esme, so Esme keeps hers blank as well. In this new world it seems that all the old relationships are dissolved. No one knows anyone.

One of the men is slight, shorter than Esme, in a rumpled tweed suit and small wire-rimmed glasses. The other man is large, so tall he's stooping slightly in the low room. He's younger, perhaps in his mid-twenties, and sandy blond. He has the sleeves of his dirty white shirt rolled up above his elbows and his fingers are stained with ink like the woman's. The small man steps forward and his body language tells Esme that he's in charge, or at least considers himself to be.

"Who sent you here?" he barks.

Esme has spent her life teaching herself not to be afraid, to be mistress of herself in every situation. But she finds that in this moment, anxiety like she hasn't known in years floods her system. She's a confident woman, able to talk to almost anyone effortlessly, but she feels out of her depth here and completely unsure of herself. She also realizes suddenly that she can be killed simply for being where she is at this moment. She swallows hard and hopes that no one can see her attack of nerves.

"Charlotte Lafitte from Café Flore sent me."

He eyes her skeptically and says nothing. The other two are silent as well. There are papers scattered everywhere on a rickety table set up between them, and some sort of crude printing press. Ah, Esme thinks in understanding, this is where they print up those fly-by-night papers and manifestos.

It's then, while the three of them are examining her closely, that Esme notices the bones. Bones stacked everywhere, bones made into walls, walls of bones that disappear into passageways made of bones, that open into other rooms, rooms lined in bones. The bones are stacked neatly like cord wood, and decorated with more bones, leg bones making X's in the wall of bones; rows of leering skulls adorning the tops of the bone walls like some vile picket fence. She's heard about the catacombs, and has been told what's down here, but now that she's seeing it, she can't quite comprehend the scale of it, the planning, the tidy, almost artful organization of human remains. It's lurid, morbid, grotesque and utterly fascinating. Of course they picked this place. Who in their right mind would come down here alone at night? She must be mad.

She's pulled out of her shameless ogling of the bones by the voice of the small bespectacled leader. "What do you want?"

Esme takes a deep breath. She hasn't given much thought to what she will say, how she will present herself. Usually she needs no sort of rehearsal. But now that she's faced with these people, she finds herself momentarily at a loss and her nerves come back again in full force.

Finally she says, "I may have access to information that you might find useful."

"What sort of information?"

"I can't be certain. But I'm in a position to hear things. Things you might want to know."

"I know what sort of position you're in," the large blond man suddenly interjects. "I know who you are. You throw parties for the fucking Nazis. She's got the officers in her house every damned night," he says, this time to the short man.

"Yes, they do come to my house." Esme says calmly, not wanting to let his hostile attitude get to her. "That's how I hear what I hear."

"We can't trust her," the blond man says to his slight companion, "The Nazis probably sent her here."

The little man says nothing for a moment, and he doesn't acknowledge his large blond friend. "What makes you so eager to help?"

Esme just blinks at him in disbelief. What else would she do?

"What else would I do?"

"You could keep your head down and your nose clean, like everyone else in Paris," he says, eyeing her skeptically.

Esme snorts dismissively. "Once I understood…that's not really an option for me," she finally finishes tersely.

"Well, Madame Benoit, I'm sure you feel very brave coming down here, but I'm not sure if it's worth the risk so that we can pick up a few tidbits about which operas the Nazis prefer." He starts to turn away from her, dismissing her. "I'm sure you can find your way back out and I trust that you won't reveal what you've seen here?"

The blond man smirks in satisfaction, sneering dismissively at Esme as he turns back to the woman, who is glancing nervously at Esme. Esme feels her blood begin to boil, all thoughts of fear and intimidation forgotten.

"The Germans are planning a move into Egypt," Esme barks imperiously, "Do the Allies know that?"

All three faces in the room pivot to stare at her in unison. No one says anything. Finally the little man clears his throat.

"How do you know this?"

Esme gives him a bored stare. "I told you, they come to my house, they drink too much, they talk. I am willing to risk my life to tell you what they say. Now do you want to hear it or not?"

He blinks at her owlishly from behind his glasses.

"You understand how dangerous this would be, yes?"

"Believe me, I understand."

"If you are caught at this, there will be nothing we can do for you. No one will help you. You will be entirely on your own, and probably executed as a spy."

"I know all this. I'm well aware of the danger."

"And you still want to proceed?"

Esme meets his eyes for a moment. Finally she says softly, "They must be stopped, mustn't they? I have to try."

They stare at each other for another long silent moment as he makes up his mind.

"Come to the market at Place Saint Medard in two days at nine o'clock," he finally says. "Someone will find you and give you more information. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that you must say nothing of this to anyone."

"I know that. I'll be there."

Esme doesn't wait to see if there is anything else they have to say. She has the piece of information she needs. She turns on her heel and heads back down the hallway the way she came. She's certain that she doesn't draw a full breath until she is safely back in her boudoir an hour later.

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Esme shifts the woven basket to her other arm and pretends to examine the wilted carrots as if she knows what she's looking at and actually cares. Tati looked at her as if she'd lost her mind this morning when she insisted that she wanted to do the shopping. It was all Esme could do to keep her face straight and her voice level. She would have to become a much better liar if this was going to work.

She casts a surreptitious glance to the side from under her lashes, even though she has no idea what or who she's looking for. That's the point, of course. The contact, when it comes, _if_ it comes, should be completely beneath anyone's notice. Just two people exchanging an entirely unremarkable bit of casual conversation at the market. If she can see the contact coming, then so can everyone else. So she turns her attention back to the carrots and makes a show of selecting a few.

The carrot-choosing can't be dragged out any longer, so she pays for her small handful and moves on to a busy stall selling eggs. Eggs are hard to come by and there's a crowd. The idea of eggs actually piques Esme's interest. An omelet would be divine. She should get some eggs and have Tati make her one. Now that she thinks on it, Madame Chernot, her elderly next-door neighbor, probably hasn't had eggs in months. She will get some for her as well.

She manages to make it to the front of the stall and procure the eggs, but while she's been making her purchase, a crowd has gathered behind her and she can't get back out to the street. Each time she tries to push through the jostling scrum of people, she gets rudely shoved. Just as she's about to lose her temper and start snapping, she feels a strong hand close around her elbow and hears a voice in her ear.

"Here, Madame, allow me to assist you."

She says nothing, only smiles tightly and allows the stranger to help her though the crowd. She turns her head just enough to catch a glimpse. He's dark-haired, bespectacled, mid-height, completely unremarkable.

"Thank you," she murmurs as they clear the crowd.

"It's nothing, Madame," he demurs. "Tell me, Madame, do you attend church?"

Esme blinks once and can't think of a reply to his completely ridiculous question.

"Church? Well, I…that is, not for many years…."

"Might I suggest Saint Germain l'auxerrois?"

Esme continues to stare at him, although her brain is beginning to catch up. This is it. Her contact, the next step.

"I think you'll find that it's quite peaceful and lovely there. The right hand aisle, near the back in particular, has some remarkable stained glass. Inspiring."

By now she has completely recovered herself and responds in her usual tone, smooth as silk. "Is that right? I may have to pay a visit soon. Might you be able to tell me a good time to attend? You know, when it's not too crowded?"

Finally a flicker of emotion crosses his face and the corner of his mouth twitches up. He's amused by her, by how quickly she's caught on and by how well she plays. She thinks he seems to relax just a tiny bit.

"Thursday mornings are always quiet there. Around eleven. It's a good time for…quiet contemplation."

"Thank you," Esme says smoothly, smiling at him. "What a helpful recommendation you've given me."

He nods his head slightly, "I'm delighted I could assist you, Madame."

The conversation seems at an end and he's about to turn away, but then he pauses. His eyes meet hers and there's a moment of connection, his face is tight, concerned. "Good luck to you, Madame," he says quietly.

She looks back, tries to communicate to him her resolution, her commitment to following this through, but all she can say is, "Thank you."

Then he is gone and Esme is standing alone in the center of the market, her heart pounding its way out of her chest. Thursday. Two days away.


	3. Chapter 3

There is a new Live Journal entry to accompany this chapter:

http://resistance-esme(dot)livejournal(dot)com/

Endless thanks to WriteOnTime, my beta, and to justaskalice for reading it first and letting me know if I'm making sense at all.

**Stephenie Meyer owns any Twilight characters that may appear in this story. The remainder is my original work. No copying or reproduction of this work is permitted without my express written authorization**.

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Esme barely sleeps Wednesday night. It doesn't help that she didn't chase the last German officer out of her house until after two a.m.. Once she finally has quiet, she still doesn't sleep. She is certain of the course she has set herself on, so she is not terribly afraid for herself. She only hopes that the information she is able to procure will be worth the risks others will be taking to get it from her.

Thursday morning, Esme dresses carefully. It has been years since she has stepped foot in a church. She can't hope to fit in, but she hopes at least not to draw undue attention to herself. The church the gentleman mentioned at the market is nowhere near her house. It is, in fact, on the Right Bank, quite some way away. She will have to come up with a believable story as to why she's now visiting a church so far from her house when she's never stepped foot in the neighborhood one.

The church, Saint Germain l'auxerrois, is near the Louvre, and very old. Esme passes through the stone porch carved with hard-faced saints and enters the cool, dim church. She stands just inside the entrance, at the head of the nave, nervously casting her eyes around the pews. There is hardly anybody here. A few old women scattered across the pews near the front, bowed heads covered in lace shawls, withered hands wrapped in rosaries as they kneel and pray. They remind her of the old women who walked to the church every morning in her village in the Loire Valley when she was young, and she wonders absently what they pray about every day. What can possibly happen in their daily lives that requires the constant intervention of the Holy Spirit?

There is a young priest puttering around up on the altar, straightening things. There is no one else. She looks for the man from the market, but quickly realizes that he won't be the one she meets today. In fact, she'll probably never see him again. She's quite certain that none of the pious old women are supposed to be her contact, and neither is the awkward young priest. Then she remembers what the dark-haired man from the market told her. The aisle on the right. Some exceptionally fine stained glass. Perhaps she is supposed to wait there and someone will come to her.

She crosses to the right and her heels make a hollow ringing on the stone floor. One of the old women looks back over her shoulder towards Esme, and she imagines the old woman's eyes are hard and judgmental. She resists the urge to duck her head; no pious old woman will make her feel intimidated. She just moves to the side pews and chooses one at random, perhaps a dozen rows from the back of the church.

She sits midway down the pew and glances around. There is no one on this side of the church and because of the rows of columns separating the aisle from the nave, she can't see any of the old women there. There are no electric lights, of course, only a dull, filtered blue light struggling to make it through the stained-glass windows. The church has certainly seen better days. When she settled in her pew her movements disturbed a pair of pigeons who had been roosting over a window in a side altar. They fly across the church, close to the vaulted ceiling, settling on the far side. The stained glass is lovely, though, she thinks, looking around. The altar to her left has three windows, each filled with scenes from the life of Christ. She loses herself for a long time puzzling out the stories depicted, trying to figure out who is meant to be Mary and who Mary Magdalene in the scene of the crucifixion.

She's lost in the pictures, in the glowing colored shapes and their blank glass faces utterly devoid of personality, when she hears a rustle of movement behind her and to her left. She begins to turn her head to look when a whispered voice halts her.

"Don't look."

She doesn't, she keeps her head facing forward, her eyes on her lap.

"I believe you're here to talk to me," the voice comes again, not quite a whisper this time, but probably not audible to anyone sitting more than a few feet away.

"I suppose I am," Esme says softly. The urge to look, to see the face attached to the voice, is strong, but she resists. It goes against all her instincts. She always looks people fully in the face, meets their eyes with hers, when she speaks to them. It's why people connect with her so easily. She can feel unease skitter down her spine speaking to this disembodied voice.

It's a man, that's all she can tell. That, and he's English. Rather proper, too, judging from the accent, although his French is impeccable.

"What's your name?" she asks.

There is a long pause. "It's better if I don't tell you."

Esme snorts softly. "You think I would betray you? Do you not realize how much of a risk _I _am taking being here?"

"I don't want to know yours either," he says quickly. "It's safer for both of us that way."

"You don't know my name?"

"No, I was told only that there would be someone at this spot, at this time."

Esme is somewhat mollified by that. And he has a point. Again, she hates feeling so out of her depth. She makes a terrible spy.

"So, I understand you might have some information for me?"

"I have a great many visitors… soldiers. They talk. They say things they shouldn't."

"And you're willing to come here and tell me what you hear?"

Esme nods and fixes her eyes on a bright spot of red in a window straight ahead, towards the front of the church, to avoid looking back.

"Come every week at this time. Sit here."

"What if there's nothing to tell one week?"

"Come anyway. It's too dangerous to try to make contact. Make it a standing date."

Esme smirks in spite of herself. She simply can't resist the opportunity to flirt. It's too ingrained in her, and he's just made it too easy. "A date? What a peculiar idea you have for a date, monsieur. The pigeons roosting in the corners add such a romantic touch."

She thinks she hears him chuckle, but it's so soft she can't be sure.

"You'll come every week then?" he finally says.

"Yes, every week."

There is another long pause, charged with something new. Not the anxiety surrounding their circumstances. Something else. Esme again fights the urge to turn and look at his eyes.

"What are you reading?" he finally asks.

Esme is startled by the question and looks down at the book she's been clutching, forgotten, in her lap.

"Oh..._ 'Dracula'_."

He clears his throat lightly behind her, "Excuse me, did you say '_Dracula'_?"

"Yes, I couldn't sleep last night, so I started re-reading it."

"That's a rather peculiar choice under the circumstances, don't you think?"

Esme shrugs, "Why so?"

"Well, it's so dark and full of horror and monsters. I would think, with all the monsters you're facing in real life, that you'd want to escape all that."

Esme smiles a little at his simple view of things, the notion that any novel could take her away from the horror she's found herself mired in.

"Ah, yes, but he's such a quaint little monster, don't you think?"

"Quaint?" She can hear the bafflement in his voice.

"Yes, quaint. All the biting and blood. So silly really, compared to the evil real mortal men seem to be capable of. It's all so sublimely gothic. Dark castles and wolves at the door. No, the truly frightening things seem to be happening on the streets of Europe in broad daylight. This monster," she taps the cover of the book lightly with one gloved finger, "does not frighten me. And at the end of the day when I tire of him, I can close the book and he ceases to exist. I can't get away from the real monsters quite so easily."

"Hmm," he mumbles behind her. "I suppose I see your point."

Esme sighs lightly, and shrugs again, "Besides, it's all just about sex anyway. Those poor girls, wasting away, just needing to be good and _ravaged_."

She hears a strangled choking sound behind her as he tries unsuccessfully to clear his throat.

"Oh, dear. I forgot you were English. And now I've shocked you, haven't I?"

"N-no, not at all. I assure you."

Esme laughs softly. "Oh, yes I have. I see I'll have to watch myself with you, Monsieur….This really won't do. I have to call you something."

"Why? There's just the two of us here."

"But I need to call you something, even if it's only in my head. And you need to call me something. It doesn't have to have anything to do with who we really are."

He's silent behind her for a moment. "Very well, then. I shall call you Mrs. Platt."

Esme can't resist turning her head slightly towards him in astonishment, although she keeps her eyes averted. "Exactly what about me speaks of a _Mrs. Platt_ to you?"

"Nothing, really," he sounds a bit uncomfortable, "It's just the name of a friend of my mother's. It popped into my head. It's as good as any other name."

Esme shakes her head slightly. "Very well, Mrs. Platt it is. And what should I call you?"

She casts her eyes around the church for inspiration, but ultimately decides that all the ecclesiastical references would wear on her. Her eyes fall to the book in her lap. "How about Mr. Stoker?"

She can't see his face, but she imagines that she can hear the smile in his voice, "Mr. Stoker."

"Yes, the man who tames the monsters," she murmurs.

"Well, I'm trying to, anyway. We're all trying."

They sit in silence another moment.

"I'll see you next week, then, Mrs. Platt."

"I look forward to it, Mr. Stoker."

"You should leave first. Don't acknowledge me as you go."

She nods tightly and stands to leave. She won't acknowledge him, but she has to face his direction to get out of the pew and she's desperate to get a glimpse of his face. She takes just a moment to tug one of her gloves into place and she touches her hat lightly, before she turns.

She begins to move towards the aisle and lets her eyes drop momentarily to his face, on her left. She nearly stops moving altogether. He's as handsome as a matinee idol. Really, he's almost ridiculously good-looking, with blonde hair swept off of his face in waves and high, patrician cheekbones. His lips are sensual and she feels sure she's seen their like in one of the old masters once.

But it's his eyes that rivet her. Because he's apparently unable to resist the temptation to look at her face as well and he's looked up to meet her gaze. They are blue; bright, light blue. With his blonde hair and Nordic features, he should look aloof and cold. However his eyes are anything but cold. They pin her to her spot, and they are so warm, full of concern and interest and life. She feels like he's seen into the very secret corners of her with one glance. With difficulty, she pulls her eyes away, remembering his admonition not to acknowledge his presence, and she doesn't want to do anything to endanger him. Cutting her eyes back to the end of the pew, she moves purposefully out of the aisle and into the nave. She doesn't look right or left, and she doesn't stop until she's a full block away. She finally pauses at a corner, clutching a wrought-iron fence with one hand to steady herself, overwhelmed by what she's just done, what she will continue to do, and overwhelmed by his kind blue eyes.

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It's a Saturday when he first comes. She's heard his name already, of course. He's one of the Nazi's new top men in Paris, everybody has heard of him. But she doesn't recognize him when she opens the door to find him standing on her front step in the company of another officer she knows.

Esme's first thought is that he looks like Mr. Stoker. Her second thought is that he looks nothing like Mr. Stoker. Certainly at first glance, they both have blonde hair, high cheekbones, striking Nordic features, and blue eyes. But the resemblance wears thin after just a moment. Where Mr. Stoker's eyes are intense and warm, his whole face exuding compassion and concern, this Nazi officer at her door is a handsome face in a crisp uniform and nothing more. He is smiling as she opens the door, but it does not reach his eyes. Every expression seems only painted on the surface. There is no hint of the man or the passion underneath.

He's accompanied by Lieutenant Colonel Schiffer, who has visited before. Esme is quite familiar with him. He's jovial and lazy, happy to fritter away the war in Paris. He's said absolutely nothing of interest in all the nights he's come to the house.

"Madame Benoit!" Lieutenant Schiffer cries as Tati opens the door and Esme steps forward to greet them. "May I introduce to you General der Infanterie Hans Dekker? General Dekker, may I present Madame Esme Benoit?"

Esme smiles and nods her head at the new arrival.

"General Dekker has just arrived from Berlin, Esme, to head up some things here in Paris," Schiffer says.

This is where she must flatter him, Esme decides. "Of course, Lieutenant. I've heard all about General der Infanterie Dekker. I've only been wondering why you took so long to bring him to meet me."

The Lieutenant laughs a little too loudly. "I've told him all about you, Esme! I told him, there's no place else to be in Paris! You see?"

Esme smiles indulgently at him before directing her attention back to the General. His eyes have never left her and she can read clearly what she sees there. He wants her, of course. This is not much of a surprise to her. But as she steps back and ushers them into the house, as they stand in the foyer and Tati receives their coats and hats, she notes his ice blue eyes darting quickly about the room. He's making an inventory, she thinks, of every person here that he knows and with whom they are speaking. His sharp, attentive eyes make her wary. He's not stupid. A man like Lieutenant Schiffer is easy to manage. A few bland questions, a few absent smiles, and he is content, he feels sufficiently looked after and flattered.

This General Dekker will take a good deal more to manage. He notices far more. He is much more perceptive. She will have to be constantly on her guard in his presence. The though of that makes her wary, but the prize makes her eager. If she can succeed, if she can make this man relax here, if she can loosen his tongue, the secrets he might reveal could be invaluable. Such a man as this will not easily make a careless mistake, so it will take some doing. Esme hopes she's up to this challenge.

"General," she says, her voice at its smoothest, all honeyed seduction, "Can I get you a drink? Please, do tell me what you like."

His sharp, light eyes snap back to her. He does not miss the implied invitation in her tone. His eyes dance down her figure quickly before returning to her face. Esme has to swallow hard against her revulsion, keeping her smile in place and her eyes locked on his.

"Brandy," he says finally. "If you have it."

Esme inclines her head slightly, "Of course. Tati? The Armagnac for the General, please."

"You're a fortunate woman to have brandy at this time," he says. "It's hard to come by."

Esme shrugs absently. "I have so many generous friends."

"I see that," he returns. "All the officers can talk about are your parties, Madame Benoit."

"Esme, please."

His lips thin in a tiny smile. "Esme, then."

"I love to entertain," she says lightly, trying to appear every inch the shallow socialite he's already assumed her to be. "I'm simply not happy unless my house is full! And with so many delightful officers in Paris…well, we are never short of lively company here."

"I'm happy to hear it. Being stationed far from home often leaves one wishing for the comforts of a truly civilized society. If what the officers tell me is true, there is no shortage of that here."

"Yes, I think you will find Paris an exciting city, and I like to think we collect the very best of the city here."

"Indeed, it seems one can never want for something to do in Paris," the General says. His sharp eyes have yet to leave hers, and Esme is beginning to feel slightly exposed under his gaze, but she does not let her discomfort show.

"And as your officers will tell you, the heart of Paris lies here in my house. Here, you will never be bored."

He pauses and smiles at her, a tight, hard expression utterly devoid of warmth. "I am quite sure of that, Madame…Esme."

She makes herself smile warmly at his familiar use of her name before gesturing towards the parlor and asking him to join the guests already there. He offers her his arm in an odd, formal gesture. Esme slips her hand into his elbow and allows him to lead her into the parlor at his side.


	4. Chapter 4

There is a new Live Journal entry up for this chapter:

http://resistance-esme(dot)livejournal(dot)com/

**Stephenie Meyer owns any Twilight characters that may appear in this story. The remainder is my original work. No copying or reproduction of this work is permitted without my express written authorization**.

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_June, 1942_

Esme is running late. She hurries down the stairs in uncharacteristic haste. For any other appointment, she wouldn't rush. She would arrive on her own schedule and her smile would be enough to dispel any ill feelings her tardiness engendered. But for this, for _him_, she doesn't ever want to be late.

She pulls on her gloves as she crosses through the kitchen towards the front of the house, and encounters Tati just coming in from the market.

"Oh," Tati cries, startled at Esme's sudden appearance in the kitchen. "I thought you'd gone."

Tati is a tiny thing, young and pale with limp light brown hair and huge pale blue eyes. She isn't particularly bright, Esme has found, but she's good-natured, efficient, and loyal, and she ran away from a small village in the south of France to try her luck in Paris. For that reason alone, Esme is inclined to like her.

"Not quite. I'm going now," Esme says absently, making to move past Tati towards the door.

Tati watches her for just a moment with her huge, limpid eyes before she impulsively blurts out, "Be careful, Madame!"

Esme turns on her heel slowly to look at Tati, for there's something in the tone of her voice that makes Esme think Tati knows exactly what she's up to. Tati is merely looking at her, blinking rapidly. Tati does know. Esme is right about her; she is not bright. But she is perceptive. And she knows Madame Benoit inside and out. She has been able, just from sensing the change in atmosphere around Madame, to tell that something monumental is taking place. She may not grasp all of the finer details, or know that Madame is passing information; nothing as specific as that. But she knows that Nazis come to the house every night. She can tell that, although Madame gives them the same smile she would give to any guest in her home, she secretly detests them. Tati isn't sure what it all means. But she has sensed that Madame is playing at a dangerous game, and Tati would lay down her life to protect Madame.

Esme looks carefully at Tati, but the girl gives nothing away. Once again, Esme is at a loss as to how one proceeds in these situations. She hasn't been a spy long enough to know the protocol. Once someone has guessed at what you're about, do you acknowledge it or deny until your dying breath? Esme chooses a third path; avoid the issue altogether.

"Thank you, Tati. I'll be home in time for dinner. General Dekker is coming," she says, cool and even.

Tati makes no response, and Esme leaves without looking at her again. By the time she's reached the Pont Neuf, Esme has to stop for a moment and lean on the stone wall while she gets herself back in hand. Tati knows, or has guessed that something's going on. It's hardly surprising; the girl lives in her house. Esme's instincts tell her that she can trust Tati completely, but are instincts enough? Can anyone really be trusted in times such as these?

Rather than feeling panic at the thought of someone else knowing, Esme feels an odd sense of relief, as if she doesn't have to bear the weight of the secret alone, even if Tati doesn't necessarily know the details and they can't ever allude to it. And, she reasons, if Tati knows and planned to betray her, she's had several weeks at this point to do it. Esme reasons that Tati, as her instincts insist she is, must be trustworthy. With a sigh, Esme realizes that she has no choice but to trust her at this point anyway.

Esme is still standing on the bridge when a man crosses in front of her, head bowed, hat brim pulled low. He's completely unremarkable except for one glaring detail: the yellow felt six-pointed star crudely stitched to his breast pocket. Esme can hardly believe what she's seeing. She knew the Germans had been forcing the Jews in their country to wear them for quite some time. Last week, there was word that it was now law here in France, too, but she never believed they'd really make them do it. Yet here is this man, a Frenchman, trying to keep his gaze averted from the world, forced to wear that hateful signifier. Esme is revolted and enraged with absolutely no outlet for it anywhere. She can't speak to him to offer sympathy, she can't complain to other pedestrians loitering nearby. To complain or protest would only bring the authorities down on her, which would help no one and keep her from her new mission.

Her head snaps up as she realizes she does have an outlet for her anger, and he's waiting for her at St. Germain l'auxerrois. She continues on across the bridge at a quicker pace, nearly desperate to be in her pew again, whispering her secrets to his waiting ears.

He's not there when she arrives; he never is. But he always slips into the pew behind her and to her left within minutes of her arrival, so she's surmised that he's there somewhere and observing, waiting for her to get settled before he sits. She likes knowing that he's watching her walk in.

Esme slides into the pew she now thinks of as hers and settles in to wait. The scene has become familiar in just the few weeks they've been doing this. The same scattering of pious old women on their knees up front, as a priest busies himself tidying the altar. The faces might change a little, but the tableau is always the same. No one ever chooses to sit in this corner of the church. No one sits in this entire aisle, so they are always completely alone; there is never anyone to observe them. She supposes that's why it was chosen.

The routine is always the same. Every Thursday, just like now, Esme enters and sits and looks at the windows. Sometimes she brings a book, like she did the first day, and reads while she waits. Then her head is bowed like she's praying, which she feels might make her blend in more. Every Thursday, like now, her ears begin to strain, listening for any clue that he's approaching; the scuff of a shoe on the stone floor, the rustle of fabric. Every Thursday, by the time she hears it, she's so tense from waiting that the first tiny noise makes her jump. Every Thursday, Esme chides herself for being so eager and jumpy, and she calms herself back down as he slides into the pew behind her. After a few moments he will clear his throat, which is her cue to start talking, if there's anything to say. Esme talks, telling him every snippet of conversation she can remember, every name she hears, every place mentioned.

Today is no different. Her ears are straining so hard listening for his approach that when she finally hears it, it makes her heart skip a beat in a combination of anxiety and excitement. She closes her eyes and takes a few calming breaths as she listens to him slide into his place behind her. She's only seen his face twice. Once, the first time they met, and once a couple of weeks ago, when he suggested that she leave first, just to mix things up. But she can draw up every tiny detail in her mind, and she does so now, trying to imagine his expression, the set of his mouth, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, as he settles into place.

Imagining his face is lovely, but the next part is what Esme is longing for: hearing his voice. He clears his throat. Some days, he also greets her; other days, all she hears is the throat-clearing. She pauses for just a moment to see if he'll say something today. At first she thinks that's all he'll do today, but then, his low voice, almost a whisper, reaches her ears.

"How are you today, Mrs. Platt?"

A ridiculous grin overtakes her face at his use of her teasing nickname. That name seemed almost insulting when he first said it, but now she adores it, and she treasures the rare occasions when he says it.

"I'm well, thank you, Mr. Stoker. And you?"

"Well enough. Anything to tell this week?"

And just like that, it's on to business. Esme never gets more than that out of him and doesn't really expect to. Although she wishes he would talk to her more, and about more personal subjects, she knows he can't, and knows she shouldn't push him. Just having him here to listen to her makes her feel less hopelessly alone, and that has to suffice. So she talks, recounting her evenings to him, who was there, who talked to whom, who said what. The German officers, Esme has found, like to gossip like schoolgirls, and their ambition makes them catty. They constantly analyze their fellow officers' appointments and promotions, looking for any hint of favoritism or slights. Esme commiserates and sympathizes and agrees with them, while she secretly makes mental notes about who has been sent where and how many men he now commands.

When she's exhausted her week for details, she sits back a bit in her pew, fiddling with the clasp on her handbag.

"Is there anything else you can think of?" he prompts her softly. She wonders if she's imagining that he seems reluctant to end their meeting, too.

"I think my housekeeper suspects," she says. "Not meeting you, but…something."

He's silent for a long moment. "Do you trust her?"

"I have to, don't I?"

"I suppose so," he says with a sigh. "Anything else?"

"They use words I don't understand sometimes. I speak German, of course, but there are words, military terms, I think, that I don't know."

"Of course. You wouldn't know the vocabulary," he says pensively.

"Perhaps there's a book…?"

"No, nothing that could be found accidentally. I'll teach you. Next week I'll have some terms for you to memorize."

"Alright," she says softly, but inside she's delighted because that means he'll speak, _they'll_ speak. "Is that all?"

He's quiet and she can sense he's thinking about something, perhaps weighing how to say it.

"General der Infanterie Dekker…"

"Yes?"

"He comes often?"

Now it was Esme's turn to pause, just long enough to wonder why he was asking. Was it for the cause or for himself?

"Most nights, yes."

Another long pause from him.

"He's…Being in his position, he's privy to a great deal of information."

"Yes, I sensed that."

"If you could…" He begins, but stops.

"What?"

"I can't ask you to. It's wrong." She might be imagining it, but he sounds upset.

"Yes, you can. What is it?"

He sighs heavily before he continues, "If you can get close to him…"

"I already am," she says shortly, and hopes he will leave it at that. The idea of discussing her flirtations with Dekker with him makes her feel sick. He says nothing, though and now she thinks his deafening silence might be worse.

Finally, he says, "Has he said why they sent him to Paris? Why him, specifically? Do you know his assignment?"

"He said he was here to handle an important project."

"A project?"

"No, wait…that wasn't the word he used. A shipment. No, an export. An important export. He was brought in to oversee it."

"Hmm."

"What does it mean? Does it help?"

He sighs. "I have no idea what it means. I don't know if it's important. I don't know if it will help at all. Chances are, we'll never know if any of this is helpful. Do you want to stop?"

Esme is silent. It's the most emotion he's ever shown. He sounds tired, a little angry. And at the end…desperate?

"No. I don't want to stop."

"You should go," he finally says, his voice back to its impassive whisper. "We've stayed too long as it is."

Esme stands abruptly and slides out of the pew. She allows herself one quick glance at his face as she passes. His head is bowed, he's staring at his hands clasped in his lap. He doesn't look up at her.

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_Mid-July, 1942_

"Now in my day, a woman knew how to make her own cheese," Madame Chernot intones, wagging one shriveled finger in the air to emphasize her point. "But these days, you young girls go out in the world barely able to boil water!"

Esme smiles warmly at her and Madame Chernot's perception of her as a "young girl" when she's nothing of the sort. But Esme supposes that all women seem young to Madame Chernot. Every window in the house is thrown open, but no hint of a breeze makes it into the kitchen to alleviate the stifling heat that's descended on Paris. Esme idly fans herself with an old silk fan she got as a gift years ago, watching Madame Chernot busy herself at the sink.

Madame Chernot is tying up bundles of herbs with twine and hanging them in Esme's kitchen window. She's is doing it with the idea that Esme will use the dried herbs when she cooks, which Esme finds rather laughable. However, she does enjoy the scent and the way they look hanging there.

"Madame Chernot, please don't trouble yourself with that. Come and sit and have a coffee. Maybe some pastry?" Esme asks her, feeling bad that this withered and ancient old woman exerts herself on Esme's account, especially in this oppressive heat.

"Bah! No trouble! And who's to look after you if I don't, Mademoiselle? That silly young housekeeper of yours?"

Esme doesn't bother to correct the "Mademoiselle", because Madame Chernot never remembers when she does. She smiles fondly at the old woman busily working at her sink, and wonders how her life might have turned out if she'd had a woman like this for a mother. Her own mother was nothing like this, all hard edges and ruthless, small-town ambition. She would claw her way up the grubby little social order of their tiny Southern village by any means necessary, even if it meant sacrificing her own daughter to do it. The bitterness Esme felt towards her is long gone; all that's left now is a sort of wistful curiosity for the woman she might have grown into if her start in life had been different, if a woman like this had loved her then.

But, she thinks, she has Madame Chernot now, and for all the misery of her early years, Esme is proud of who she's grown into. She's also proud of how she's choosing to finish her days. Because Esme is sure that the only way her work with the Resistance will end is with her discovery and death. She only hopes to keep it going for as long as possible, to pass as much information as she can before she's found out. And if her life has to end too soon, she's happy that it will be like this.

"Alright, Mademoiselle," Madame Chernot says with a hefty sigh, turning from the sink, "all done for now. Pleas try to use those, now, and cook yourself something. You're too thin."

"You worry about me too much," Esme smiles.

Madame Chernot stops in front of her and lays her wrinkled little hand across Esme's still-smooth cheek. Her eyes are nearly hidden in the wrinkles of her face, but they are bright and perceptive as she looks into Esme's face.

"I have good reason to worry about you. Don't I, my dear?"

Esme can only stare back wordlessly, certain that, like Tati, Madame Chernot has guessed what she is up to. She must be the worst spy in the world if her intentions are so clear on her face. But Madame Chernot just smiles and pats her cheek. "You take care, my dear. And stay cool in this heat! It's sent from the devil himself, I think!"

Then she is shuffling towards the door, her basket slung over her arm again as she heads back to her little house next door.

No sooner does the door close behind her and Esme turns back to making the coffee, than the door slams back open and Tati throws herself inside. Her large pale eyes are rimmed with red. Her face is flushed and mottled, her hair unkempt. She's drawing ragged, stuttering breaths, nearly choking on her sobs.

"Tati! What is it? What's happened to you?"

Esme is across the room, gripping Tati by the arms in moments, trying to get the girl to calm down and look at her. Tati is sobbing so hard that it takes her a moment to get any words out at all.

"Oh, Madame. The Velo d'Hiver!"

Esme's brows draw together in confusion, she's unable to think of anything about a sports arena that would drive Tati to this state.

"The Velo d'Hiver? Where they have the bicycle races? What about it?"

Tati takes a huge shaking breath and it seems to be enough to allow her to speak, which she does in short, gasping snippets, nearly unintelligible.

"After the market, and the shopping…I met Iréne to walk along the Quai….We met her friend, Raoul, and he told us…Oh! He told us what's happening there…what they're doing…"

Tati's eyes well with fresh tears, and she shakes her head hard, nearly frantic.

"Tati! Tell me! What's happened?"

"That's where they're taking them," she finally whispers hoarsely.

"Taking who?"

"The Jews. The police…they've been taking them from their homes and they're all there, in the Velo d'Hiver."

"They're arresting them again? The agitators?"

"No!" Tati nearly shrieks this word. "Not agitators this time! Families, Madame! Whole families! Dragging them out in the middle of the night! Children, too! There are _children_ in there!"

Esme closes her eyes and shakes her head, trying to make sense of Tati's broken information. When she speaks again, she struggles to keep her voice calm and even. "So they're taking these families to the Velo d'Hiver. What are they doing there? What's happening?"

Tati nearly descends into sobs again, but Esme tightens her grip on the girl, trying to keep her focused.

"Thousands, Madame. Raoul said fifteen thousand. All stuffed inside. There is no water and no doctors. They've been there for days, Madame. And Raoul says they're going to…"

"What? What does he say? What are they doing with them?"

Tati shakes her head hard and fights back the weeping, "He says they're bringing in trains. To take them to those camps."

Esme feels the chill, the same, sadly familiar chill, course through her. The one she feels whenever she hears some fresh piece of horror that defies belief. Fifteen thousand people in the Velo d'Hiver, in this heat, with no water. Children, too. All of them about to be shipped out on cattle cars to God knows where. It's happening now, at this very moment on the other side of Paris, as she stands helplessly in her quiet kitchen with a sobbing Tati in her arms.

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Later that night, as Esme glides from room to room, smiling softly at her guests, making sure glasses are filled and music is playing, she forces every thought of Velo d'Hiver from her head. She can't…she cannot keep up this charade and do what must be done if she allows the horror in. She separates, and sends the self she knows far away. The self she knows, the real Esme, would have fled the house, run straight to the Velodrome, beat on the walls, screamed at the guards, demanded attention, demanded results until she got them or got herself hauled away and imprisoned, too. But that Esme has no place here. She can't do what needs to be done with that woman screaming her outrage and horror in her ears, so she packs her off and sends her away. All that's left is the shiny glittering shell of herself, smiling and talking and flirting just as she always has.

Tati has recovered enough to resume her position by the door, and it's this night that proves to Esme exactly where Tati's loyalties lie. Tati hates them, every bit as much as Esme does. But she will play her own role just as seamlessly as Esme does, knowing that they are coming here for a good reason.

And so Tati is there as always to answer the door when General der Infanterie Dekker arrives. She would offer to take his coat, but the heat remains oppressive and no one is wearing a coat. Instead, she takes his hat as Esme steps forward to greet him.

"General Dekker! How delightful! I was just remarking that I hoped we'd see you before the night was out. And now here you are."

"Madame Benoit. You know I've told you to call me Hans," his pale blue eyes are glittering, and his smile tight and feline as he sizes her up.

Esme inclines her head with a smile. "Hans. Of course. What's kept you so late tonight, Hans?"

"Oh, details. Many details to wrap up on my project."

"Can I get you a drink?"

"Please."

Esme motions him to follow her to the parlor, which he does. He cocks his head a bit as they leave the entryway, as if he's listening to the music playing softly in the background.

"Wagner?" he asks.

Esme smiles and inclines her head. "So many of the younger officers like it. I play it for them."

Hans gives her a sly, conspiratorial smile. "I know he's a Party favorite, but personally I prefer Puccini. Wagner just doesn't stir my soul in the same way. Do you know what I mean?"

Esme can only stare at him, because she knows exactly what he means. The idea that Hans Dekker has had his soul stirred by Puccini is surprising to her, almost shocking.

"I prefer Puccini, too," she finally murmurs.

"I knew you would. You know I thought of you today," he says, still looking intently at her.

"Really?"

"Yes, I was passing by the Quai d'Orsay and saw a painter down there painting the water. The colors he was using, all orange and pink and firey….I don't know," he says with a faint smile and a shrug. "They made me think of you."

"Oh, that's so…"

"And it was lovely, of course," he continues. "Just like you."

"You flatter me, Hans."

"It's hardly flattery when it's the truth, Esme."

"So your project is finishing then?" Esme strives to inject her voice with a note of sadness as she tries to re-direct him. "You'll be leaving us soon?"

Hans smiles slowly at her. "Ah, no. The first phase, you might say, is wrapping up. But it's only the start of the project. I'll be here for some time to oversee it."

"I'm so delighted to hear that, Hans."

Esme leans back against the bar as she hands him his drink- brandy. She no longer needs to ask what he'd like. She reaches into a silver filigree box on the bar to retrieve a cigarette. Hans quickly pulls his matches from his pocket and lights one for her. Esme bends to light her cigarette, her hand wrapping around his to hold it steady, their heads close together. Once lit, Esme straightens and exhales, smiling slowly at Hans through the smoke. Hans never takes his pale, sharp eyes from her face as he steps closer and leans on the bar next to her, his hip just a few inches from hers.

"I'm delighted, too. I would hate to leave…Paris so soon."

"Well, it seems your project may keep you here for some time."

"Yes, I believe so. There is much to accomplish, and we've only just begun."

His tone is distracted and his eyes are averted, skimming over Esme's neck, exposed where she's worn her hair up, and her bare shoulders. He doesn't see the look of horror wash through her eyes momentarily as the pieces slot into place in her mind.

Exports.

He said he came to Paris to oversee an important export.

Only the first of many.

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**A/N: The Velo d'Hiver round-up is commonly referred to in French as ****Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv, and it really occurred. Reported numbers of victims vary, but it accounted for nearly a quarter of the Jews sent from France to Auschwitz in 1942. Only 811 survived. There is quite a bit of information online, I'm including only a link to the Wikipedia entry, as it's fairly concise.**

**http://en(dot)wikipedia(dot)org/wiki/Vel%27_d%27Hiv_Roundup**


	5. Chapter 5

Thank you so much for your enthusiastic reviews. They mean the world to me!

Endless thanks to my beta, WriteOnTime, and to justaskalice, for hand-holding.

**Stephenie Meyer owns any Twilight characters that may appear in this story. The remainder is my original work. No copying or reproduction of this work is permitted without my express written authorization**.

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_Late July, 1942_

Dead Christians. Esme's eyes keep flitting around the church, but everywhere she looks there are nothing but dead Christians. Exquisite and mystical in their suffering, broken up into nearly abstract, glowing, colored shapes. Their faces are stretched long with sorrow, their shoulders stooped under the weight of their martyrdom. These pictures in glass have inspired countless generations of Parisians to grind their knees to dust on this stone floor praying for forgiveness and salvation, but today, they only enrage Esme. All that suffering and redemption, so neatly pressed flat and etched into glass. All those pious Christians with their eyes abjectly turned to heaven, awaiting salvation, praying that the hand of God might reach down and lift them out of their misery. The hand of God….

Esme lets out an uncharacteristically unladylike snort of disgust. It echoes faintly in the dusty blue stillness of the church. The sound doesn't reach the pious old women praying up front. It does, however, reach the ears of Mr. Stoker, who is slipping up the aisle behind Esme, as silently as possible. He thinks he can feel her unhappiness from twenty feet away, which is a ridiculous thought, he knows. He doesn't make a sound until he's seated in the pew behind her and to her left, his usual spot. He can tell that she's aware of his presence though, just from the nearly imperceptible shift in her posture.

He clears his throat. This is their signal that they are ready to begin.

Most days Esme starts talking right away, as soon as she knows he's there, almost as if she's been holding in the words for him all week and they won't stay in any longer. Today, though, she keeps her eyes forward and she remains silent.

Finally he starts instead. "Is there anything to tell this week?"

When she answers, her voice is clipped and far away, completely devoid of emotion. "Dekker is a monster. They want to take over the world. They rounded up fifteen thousand Parisians this week and starved them for days before they shipped them out in cattle cars to who knows where. Other than that? No, nothing new."

He says nothing for a long time, and neither does she. But speaking freely for the first time in a week has broken something open in Esme. A crack appears in her carefully fortified wall, and she's now struggling with everything she's got not to break down into wrenching, screaming sobs at all that's happened in the past few days.

He sighs and shifts. Esme swallows hard against the painful lump in her throat and swipes angrily at her eyes. She nearly smudges her eye makeup across the fingertips of her light ivory cotton gloves. With a disgusted sigh, she strips them off and stuffs them in her bag.

"You've heard about Velo d'Hiver, then?" he finally whispers.

Esme lets out one short, sharp laugh, utterly devoid of humor. "Yes. I think it's safe to say that all of Paris heard about Velo d'Hiver. I suppose there's that. No one can deny now what they're up to."

"That's true."

Esme wants to ask him a question, but it breaches their protocol. She's not to ask for information, he's not to give it. It's safer for everyone involved that way. But she can't help it. Trapped as she is in the lair of the Beast itself, she can't get any information at all. At least not that kind of information.

"Do you know where they sent them?"

He says nothing and for a moment she thinks he won't, that he'll keep up this wall of detachment. When he does speak, his voice is lower, perhaps closer, like he's shifted over towards her.

"No. Well, not exactly. But it isn't hard to guess."

"Camps? Like Drancy?"

"Worse than Drancy. Not in France."

Esme squeezes her eyes shut against the bitter knowledge and she's almost sorry she asked. Maybe ignorance was better. No, this understanding of the brutal facts is what keeps her going. But still…at times like this, it threatens to drown her.

"How do you manage?" she whispers.

"Manage?"

"Knowing the truth. How bad it is…how do you keep it from eating you alive?"

"Well, I focus on the work we're doing. I hope that it does some good in some way. And for those I can't save….I hope they find some peace, even if it's not in this world." There's a pause before what comes next, as if he's uncertain if he should say it. When he does, his voice is soft, laced with the compassion she remembers seeing in his face the first day they met. "Perhaps there is some comfort to be found in that thought for you as well."

Esme struggles to restrain her scoff of disbelief, "Are you talking about _God_?"

"Well, I suppose so, in a way."

"Really? You can sit there and speak of _God _to me in the face of what has happened here this week?" She can't help it, and she can't restrain herself. She flings a hand at the saints in stained glass all around them. "Where was God when they were locking women and babies in that place for days with no water? Where was God when they packed them onto the trains? Is God taking care of them now? If so, he has a curious way of showing his love, your God."

"I think we mean different things when we speak of God."

"This is not your God?" she points a finger towards the altar of the church.

"I don't think of it quite so literally."

"But you _do _believe?"

"Yes," he says with absolute conviction.

"But how can you?" Esme breathes. "In the face of everything you've seen, knowing the evil that men are capable of, how can you believe?"

He is quiet for a moment and she hears him shift again. When he speaks, his voice is hushed but urgent. "God is no magician in the sky who comes to cure our ills."

"What, then?"

"Would you believe me if I said that I see the evidence of God in you?"

"Me?"

"Yes, you. You come here every week for the sake of people you will never know, uncertain whether or not what you do will ever be of any aid to them at all. And yet you still do it. You risk your_ life_ to do it. That speaks of God to me. Yes, these times we're living in have proved that men are capable of inconceivable evil. But when ordinary people can be moved to do such extraordinary things in the face of that evil, isn't that God, _some_ kind of God, at work in all of us? I have to believe that, or there really would be no point to any of this."

Esme can say nothing. He's broken through her carefully constructed walls and she's weeping silently.

"Please don't cry," he murmurs.

"I don't know if I'm strong enough for this, even with the help of your God," she whispers, giving voice to her darkest fears in this tiny little moment she's carved out with him.

"You are. You've already proven your strength."

"But to keep going…to face them every day…when there is no one I can ever speak the truth to."

"You have me. You can always speak the truth to me."

"Do I have you?"

"Yes, you do."

Never has she wanted so badly to turn and look him in the eye, to reach out and touch him in some way. But they've already crossed far too many lines today, and taken far too many risks.

"You should go," he says softly.

She closes her eyes and nods, swiping her tears away with her handkerchief.

"Will you be alright?"

She nods again, her eyes still closed.

"I'll see you next week," she whispers.

"I...I look forward to it."

Esme stands to leave. She still feels miserably shattered and raw and she reaches one hand out to grip the back of her pew as she begins to move towards the aisle. And that's when she feels it, so soft and fleeting she might have imagined it, except she knows she hasn't. She feels the tips of his fingers ghost across the back of her hand before slipping away as if they were never there.

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_January, 1943_

He isn't coming. Esme has been sitting in her pew for over an hour so far, and there is no sign of him. Not the tell-tale scuff of his shoes on the flagstones, not the soft clearing of his throat that is now so familiar to her she hears it in her sleep.

She began to worry almost immediately when he didn't materialize behind her shoulder within moments of her settling in her spot, because he _always_ did. Not once in all the long months that they've been meeting this way has he ever been late by even a few minutes. So within ten minutes, Esme knows something is wrong. After sitting frozen in place for over an hour, she is nearly numb with panic.

What should she do? What _could_ she do? They've made no provisions for this, no back-up plan should something go awry. Everything was too dangerous, too risky.

Esme realizes that as close as she feels to him, she knows absolutely nothing about him. He's a handsome, blond Englishman. He comes to the church once a week and listens while she talks. Occasionally, he talks back. He has become the secret center of her world and she knows less about him than she does about the man who comes to clean her chimney. Even if she wanted to make inquiries about him, she can't. He's a cipher.

But he's not and she knows it. She may not know his name, or what he did for a living before all this, or why he is in Paris during the war, but she _knows_ him just the same. She knows him better than she knows anyone on earth, and she feels he knows her just as well. The rest, the details, are superfluous. Except without those details, he's lost to her. Not that she's at liberty to search for him. She can't. She can't breath a word of what's been transpiring in this church to a living soul, not even to try to find him.

In this moment, Esme feels utterly bereft. She knows she cares for him, she knows she depends on him. He has become her rock, her safe harbor in this dark sea. But until this, until she faces the reality of his loss, she hasn't understood how complex and powerful her other feelings for him are.

An hour and a half go by. She outlasts even the pious praying women up front, and still she can't bring herself to leave. She knew from the instant that he was late that he wouldn't come at all, and yet she can't bring herself to give up. She imagines what he would say to her, that she was taking an unnecessary risk lingering so long, and that's what finally drives her to her feet.

She takes her time returning home, almost wandering, although the path between the church and home is so familiar that she could never get lost. Her coat hangs open, but she's senseless to the biting, damp cold. None of it penetrates the wall of panic in her mind.

She's turning onto her street before she's aware of it. She's still moving in a fog, but a familiar voice snaps her back to reality.

"Good afternoon, Madame Benoit."

Gérard.

He still lives with his mother, but much about him has changed. Gone are the dirty clothes and unshaven face. He's always a little sweaty and still fat, but he's got decent clothes and appears passably clean. Esme knows what has affected this change. He's working for the Nazis in secret. He's their lackey and spy. He keeps his beady eyes on the neighborhood, looking for troublemakers, listening for discontented grousing. Worse than the banal tattle-tale nature of that, Esme also suspects that he sniffs out those who may be aiding the Jews. The little bastard listens to the neighborhood gossip, the secrets shared at the market stalls, and he sells his tidbits to the Nazis. Esme thought it was impossible to loathe Gérard any more than she did, but he's surprised her.

For the last several months, since he'd found his supposed calling as a Nazi lapdog and errand boy, he's kept a respectful distance from her. His eyes still glaze with lust when she passes, but he no longer makes inappropriate comments or harasses her.

Esme knows why. He thinks they're on the same side now.

"Gérard," Esme finally responds politely, inclining her head only slightly.

Gérard manages a forced, polite smile.

"How are you today, Madame Benoit?"

"Well, thank you. How is your mother?"

"She's well."

"Give her my best, would you?"

"Of course. Are you heading home to meet your guests then?" Gérard asks, barely concealing his eager desperation. He's practically salivating for a chance to meet General der Infanterie Dekker, to grovel before him and ingratiate himself in that quarter. It's his abject pandering to Hans that keeps him on his best behavior now with Esme.

Because like everyone else in Paris, he thinks Hans is her lover.

Why wouldn't he? All he sees is Hans showing up at her door night after night and staying for hours. She's managed to hold Hans at arms' length so far by summoning the specter of her absentee husband, so their flirtation hasn't gone much farther than that…a flirtation. A few chaste goodnight kisses, a few strokes of his fingers down her bare arm, or across her back. Nothing more than that. But the rest of the world doesn't know that. To them she appears as nothing more or less than General Dekker's mistress.

This thought pains her more than she realized it would. Not Gérard, anything that keeps him away is welcome. But the idea that everyone thinks she's sleeping with Dekker, that she's a _collaborator_. She thought knowing the truth in her own head would be enough, but the idea that all her old friends, the proud, honest artists of her former circle, would think she was a Nazi officer's mistress… the thought is repulsive. For once, she's glad that no one from the old days has remained in Paris. She couldn't bear to run into someone and see it in their eyes; the judgment, the revulsion.

"Yes," she finally manages. "I have guests coming for dinner. Won't you excuse me?"

"Of course. Enjoy your evening. And your company."

He forces another pained, polite smile which Esme finds it impossible to return. She just turns and continues on to her house.

_This is when I need him,_ she thinks. This unbearable crushing weight, this panic, this shame. If he had been there today, if she had seen him, spoken with him, even for only a few minutes, she could manage it. Without even that small dose of him, this charade feels entirely out of her control, and she feels like she's drowning in it. Without him to remind her of the truth, all she has are the lies.

Another Thursday passes, and he still does not appear. Esme can scarcely function, she's so panicked. She actually pleads illness and sends everyone away for several nights in a row. Hans sends enormous bouquets three times a day while she is "ill". Esme banishes the vile flowers to the unused garret rooms. She can't bear the sight of them.

In a fit of near-madness, she goes to Café Flore one afternoon, thinking to perhaps pull Charlotte aside and bare her soul. Charlotte works for the Resistance. That's how this whole thing started. Maybe she knows him, or could ask around about him. Maybe she can find out where he's gone, what's happened to him.

She gets as far as the sidewalk outside before reason takes hold again, and she stops herself. What would he say? He'd be angry at her for putting herself at risk this way, even for his sake. It's only this, the knowledge that he wouldn't want her to look for him, that keeps her from doing it.

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_February, 1943_

It's been three weeks. On the walk over to the church, Esme mentally tries to prepare herself for his continued absence. This may be the end, she thinks. Maybe he'll never come back. Maybe he was reassigned; maybe he had to go into hiding…..maybe he was captured. She tries to brace herself for all of these eventualities, and also for the possibility that she may never know what happened to him, but it doesn't work. She can't just let him go. She knows she'll keep coming to this church week after week, hoping against hope that one day he'll just appear over her shoulder like he was never gone.

Esme is blind to all the usual scenes of the church, the praying old women, the pigeons fluttering in the corners, the sad-faced saints gazing down on her. She just enters the dim, quiet nave and crosses to the right aisle as quickly as possible, eyes straight ahead, expression grim. She smoothes her skirt instinctively as she sits, and she's barely begun to tug off her gloves when she hears it.

The scuff of shoes on the flagstones behind her.

Tears spring to her eyes instantly. She has to reach forward and grip the back of the pew in front of her to keep herself from leaping up and turning to confront him. She hangs on, white-knuckled, as she listens to him slide into place behind her.

She doesn't wait for him to settle, or for his clearing of the throat before she leaps in, her voice a frantic hiss.

"Where have you _been_?"

"I was called out of Paris for a few weeks."

"I _see_ that! Do you have any idea how I've worried?"

"It couldn't be helped. I didn't know I was going until I was nearly leaving," he says. His voice is so tired, more strained than she's ever heard him, "I'm sorry you worried. You shouldn't have."

"I can hardly help it, you know."

"You were never meant to worry," he says softly, his tone sad. "You shouldn't…count on me that way."

Esme can't help it. She breaks protocol. She twists in her pew to face him, gripping the back with one hand. He starts back at her movement, the violation of their established interactions. Impossibly, he looks aged since she last saw him. So tired and worn. She wants to smooth the hair off his face. She wants to take him home and settle him onto the loveseat in her room. She wants to lean him back on the pillows, play records for him, make him a brandy. She wants to care for him until the lines leave his forehead and his eyes lose that dull sheen. But none of that can happen.

"Not count on you?" she can't keep the emotion from her voice. She's a woman who's spent her entire adult life carefully controlling every interaction with the opposite sex. She can play conversations like a symphony. But now she has no control over what comes out. All her fear and anxiety and uncertainty pours out as her eyes fill. "Not count on you? You're all I have! You told me I have you, that I could always speak the truth to you! If you…if you're gone, I have no one, nothing. If you're not here then this lie becomes my whole life!"

His face twists and collapses, his reserved façade crumbling in the face of her tears and passion.

"You _do _have me. Don't ever think you don't. If I'm not here, just know that I have no choice. I would never willingly leave you here."

"Where were you?" It's nothing more than a hushed whisper. "Just tell me. If I know something, _anything_, maybe I won't worry so much."

He closes his eyes in exhaustion and defeat. "I'm a doctor," he finally says. "Well, I've trained to be a doctor. I was needed for my abilities in the…" he instinctively stops himself from sharing the specifics, but then on consideration realizes that everything about this has broken the rules meant to keep them safe. Nothing he says now can make it any worse. "I was needed in Burgundy, to tend some injured. Once I made it in, it took some time until I could make it back out undetected. There are people there deep undercover. I couldn't do anything to endanger them. I had to wait to leave until it was safe."

Once he's finished, they're both silent for a long time. Esme considers all he's told her. He's a doctor. He was helping members of the Resistance who were injured and needed him. She can tell from the exhaustion written across his face that it's taken a toll on him. Her desperate need to have him sit in a pew behind her in an empty church every week pales to insignificance beside this.

"I'm sorry," she finally says, twisting back to the front, "I shouldn't have made you explain yourself. You're right, it's a terrible risk. And you don't owe me that."

"I owe you that," he says quietly. "I'll tell you whatever it takes to put your mind at ease, to make this even a little easier for you."

"Just seeing you makes it easier for me," she breathes. "You have no idea…"

"Yes, I do. For me, too."

They sit in silence as the words they've just spoken hang in the air around them. Esme's heart seems to have stopped and every small breath she exhales sounds deafening in the cool quiet of the church. This…this near-declaration…it makes her pulse race and her mind reel. But they can't. This can't happen. These words can't be said. Not here and not now. Aro's words, spoken so long ago, come back to her now. "One should not love in a time of war. It's just asking for heartbreak." She laughed at him that night. He laughed at her, too, when he told her that she'd never be in love.

"A lot has been said while you were away," she finally says, her voice surprisingly steady. She's doing this for both of them, returning them to the safe part of the water, steering them clear of the rocks. "Some of it is useful, I think. Shall I tell you?"

There is a long silence from him before he softly clears his throat. They are back on familiar ground now. "Yes, please. Go ahead. I'm listening."


	6. Chapter 6

A million thank yous, as always, to WriteOnTime, for beta'ing and for just being a nice person in general.

**Stephenie Meyer owns any Twilight characters that may appear in this story. The remainder is my original work. No copying or reproduction of this work is permitted without my express written authorization**.

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_June, 1943_

"Hans said he has a friend who's just been put in command of a regiment in the Baltic."

"Did he say where, specifically?" he presses.

"No, but he mentioned that there was a spa near a river that his friend was hoping to visit if he had time."

"A spa near a river. Alright, then. Anything else?"

"I tried to get him to tell me how many troops. Hans said it was more than he'd had command of when he was a General Major. I have no idea how many troops Hans commanded then, but perhaps there's a way to find out. I couldn't get any more out of him at that point."

Esme sighs and absently rubs between her eyebrows with her fingertips. It's a habit he's noticed she's developed of late. She has never in the past had little nervous gestures like this.

"You're tired," he says gently.

She raises her head, fixing her eyes on the now-familiar red shape of Mary Magdalene's robe in the glass straight ahead of her, and smiles weakly. He can only see the side of her face; her temple, her cheekbone. He can just make out the curve of her cheek as her mouth turns up. He wishes for the ten-thousandth time that she could look at him.

"A little, perhaps."

"Late nights?" he means it to be light and teasing, but his voice has an edge to it, and Esme hears it immediately.

The smile drops off her face.

"Yes." There's nothing else she can say, nothing else he needs to hear.

"He's there every night, then?" He's stopped trying to keep the tension from his voice.

"Nearly."

He says nothing. And as much as Esme doesn't want to talk to him about this, now she wishes he'd say anything at all rather than this angry, tense silence.

"I have to," she finally says softly. "You know I have to."

"I know."

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_December, 1943_

He clears his throat. She smiles.

"How are you today, Mrs. Platt?"

"Better now." She can't keep the smile off her face or out of her voice. She's always loved his nickname for her, but she loves it even more since she finally forced the confession of its origin from him. Yes, it was the name of a friend of his mother's. He failed to mention in the beginning that his mother's friend was young and beautiful and that he'd fancied her for his entire childhood. "And you, Mr. Stoker?"

"The best I've been all week."

"I'm delighted to hear it."

"You know, I've stared at these bloody stained-glass windows for so long that I really will have to write a book about them some day."

"Pardon?"

"Oh," he laughs a little at his own absent-mindedness. "It's my cover story as to why I'm here so much. I'm writing a book about the windows. Remarkable glass in this church."

"Mmm, yes. I have heard that the windows in this church are exceptionally fine."

"A splendid example of Renaissance glass work."

"I want to break every one with my bare hands," Esme says lightly.

He chuckles softly. "I've never been so sick of a work of art in my life."

She laughs, too, as softly as she can.

"Promise me I'll never have to step foot in another church as long as I live once this…."

She is about to say "once this is over", but the words feel all wrong, too daring. It's dangerous to even hope for such an outcome. To imagine that one day this will all be nothing more than painful memories, that they might be together someplace outside of these old stone walls, face-to-face and free- she can't imagine that, because if she imagines it, she will begin to hope for it, to count on it. And that can't happen. She can't hope…

"I promise," he says quietly.

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_April, 1944_

"Darling, the weather is finally turning. Please come out and walk with me."

"Hans, I was up so late last night…" Esme moans, wanting nothing more than to retreat to her room, close the shutters and take to her bed for a year. Late nights never used to be a problem for Esme. When it was her old friends, when the house was full of her beloved artists and writers, she never slept. She stayed up till dawn, talking. But what she does now, entertaining Nazi officers every night, it's nothing but work and she's exhausted from it.

"Esme, you should see the streets. Everyone is out enjoying this glorious weather. The walk will do you good."

He is standing closer now, rubbing his palms up and down her arms, crouching a little so his face lines up with hers. Once again, Esme is struck with the thought that he is so very handsome. Or would be, except for the black evil of his soul. The dichotomy always astounds her. He can be so gentle with her, so courtly and mannered. He is so cultured and sophisticated. His tastes might be a bit narrow, but he has them, and considered opinions as well. He is well-read and has works of art and music that he feels passionately about.

And yet…

There is this evil there. He doesn't acknowledge it, and she would never know, except that she _does_ know. How many have been fooled by them, she wonders?

"Alright," she finally concedes. "Just let me get my gloves and bag."

"You'll see, darling. You'll be glad you came." He leans forward and presses his lips to her cheek and lingers. His hands curl in, gripping her arms. Not with force, he never forces. But he wants. She can't ever forget that he wants.

"Madame?"

Esme takes a stumbling step back out of his embrace. Tati is standing in the doorway, her hands twisting in front of her. She drops into a hasty, flustered curtsey. "I'm sorry to interrupt, Madame. I only heard you say you were going out. Shall I get your things?"

Esme runs a hand over her hair and then twists her hand, letting the back of it subtly swipe her cheek where he kissed her. "Yes. Yes, Tati. Thank you." They exchange one brief, loaded glance. Tati knows exactly what she was interrupting.

She doesn't look back at Hans as she prepares to go; he doesn't need any more invitations to invade her personal space when they are nearly alone in the house. She doesn't know how much longer she can hold him off. She has used the excuse of her husband, made it seem as if there is something like a relationship there still, when she hasn't seen the man in almost twenty years and doesn't even know if he's still alive. But in all the time Hans has been coming here, no husband has appeared. Esme has blamed the war, the difficulties involved in travel, for his prolonged absence. But her excuses and her manufactured inner struggle are starting to wear thin. Hans wants her, and he never lets her forget it. The thought of giving herself to him makes her ill.

"Are you ready, darling?" he beams at her, touching her elbow. Esme adjusts her glove and retrieves her bag.

"Yes, let's go. Where are you taking me to, Hans?"

"I thought we might walk over to the Quai de Conti. The view is incomparable there, you know."

"Yes, I know." _It's __my __city_, she thinks spitefully. _I know_.

Hans is right, the weather is lovely. The bite of winter has gone, and the air has a softness and a hint of warmth. The trees are covered in a froth of pale green. New leaves, new life, and yet Paris…Europe, is still in the grip of war. The dead are everywhere.

Hans is also right about the Quai de Conti. It's filled with Parisians looking to soak up these first soft days of spring. In the sun and the gentle breeze off the Seine, one can almost forget it's an occupied city. One can almost forget that millions are dying in battles and in camps all across Europe. Almost.

Hans tucks her hand into the crook of his elbow as they stroll slowly along the quai in the middle of the flow of pedestrians. He's smiling, contented. Esme forces herself to lean into him, to turn her face up to his whenever he looks down at her and return his smile warmly.

"The way the sun hits the river here at this bend reminds me a bit of the Dosse, near my family's estate outside of Wittstock," he says, his voice gentle and far away.

"They have land?"

"Oh, quite an estate. The house dates to the eighteenth century. There's a proper little farm and we keep cattle and sheep. And the grounds! The grounds really are superb. The lawns roll right down to the edge of the river. It's so lovely on a summer's evening."

"It sounds lovely."

He turns his head and tips his face down to hers. When he speaks, his voice sounds almost anxious. "I hope you'll see it some day. With me."

Esme swallows hard.

"I hope I do, too."

"I can fix it, you know," he says urgently.

"Fix what?"

"The difficulties with your husband. I have connections in the church. I'm sure they could be convinced to free you from your…situation."

"Oh…that's…it's just…"

His left hand closes around hers where it rests in his elbow. "Just think about it, Esme."

She manages a weak smile that she hopes looks sufficiently grateful. Hans lingers, his face still close to hers. She can feel his hot breath across her cheek. His hand tightens around her fingers. Esme ducks her head and presses herself further into his side.

"I am glad you convinced me to come out today, Hans. You're right, the weather superb."

He pulls back a little and exhales as she shifts directions in the conversation. He doesn't press her, and she could weep with relief.

"It's a little crowded down here. I hope you don't mind," he says.

"No, not at all. I like all the people."

"I like it, too," he says, and his voice is lower now. His face is back near hers, his lips perilously close to her ear. One inch closer and he'll be kissing the side of her face. "I like to show you off. I like having you on my arm."

Her impulse is to twist out of his grasp, but she only smiles and dips her chin a little.

They walk on for a few minutes more. She asks Hans a question about his family's estate in Wittstock and he's occupied for some time, extolling its virtues, describing its many beauties. It buys Esme a few moments to regain her bearings, and to refocus. She lets her eyes flit across the pedestrians crossing back and forth in front of them, and it's then that she catches just a glimpse of the gold between moving heads. She would know that color anywhere. Another person crosses and she sees his face and she's certain, even at this considerable distance.

_No, no, no, no_.

It's him, walking slowly through the crowds directly towards her. Hans is still talking, Esme angles her body and her head into him, but she keeps her eyes locked on Mr. Stoker. It's the first time she's seen him anywhere but inside of the church, and she's struck all over again by his handsome face. Except that, unlike Hans, she knows what lies behind this handsome face and there is nothing but goodness there. That gold hair, the color is almost otherworldly and so beautiful. He still looks tired, his eyes shadowed, but the sun has given his skin a hint of color. She loses herself for just a moment watching his walk, smooth and graceful. He's wearing a light tan trench coat but it is unbelted and open, billowing slightly behind him as he walks. He's tall, so much taller than she realized in the church. They've never stood side by side, so how would she know? He's still far away, but she fancies she can make out the blue of his eyes. The eyes that she now notices are skimming the crowd in her direction. She prays that she escapes his notice.

She doesn't.

Even if she weren't watching his face, she feels sure she would know the second his eyes fell on her. An electric shock runs through her system, then a flush of cold. He's about to see her up close with Hans Dekker. He knows all about him, of course. They've talked about him and his visits to her house for nearly two years now. But she's not foolish. She knows very well that his seeing her with Hans is entirely different than knowing about his presence in her life in some detached, intellectual sense.

Esme panics. Or rather, she wants to panic. She wants to pull her arm free from Hans, turn back and flee into the crowd. But she can't, she can't, _she can't_. She has to keep leaning on Hans, keep smiling, and under no circumstance can she betray even with a flutter of an eyelid that she knows him. It will be the end of them both if she does.

Her eyes shoot back to his and he's still staring, moving towards her inexorably. His expression is unreadable. So tense… disbelieving, perhaps? Angry? Repulsed? Then his eyes flick to Dekker and linger for just a moment and there is fury. Unmasked, unbridled fury. It's only there for an instant before he hides it away again, turning his face towards the river. Esme feels her heart contract in her chest and she can hardly breathe. She breaks the contact and looks at the ground.

"Don't you think so, darling?" Hans is turning to look at her again, smiling softly down at her.

"Mmm-hmmm." She can only hum and nod stiffly to answer his unheard question, forcing one foot in front of the other. She glances up one more time, when she calculates that they have nearly drawn abreast of one another. He's there, just a few feet away. At that moment he looks back, too, his eyes connecting with hers for an instant. His face is stone. There's nothing of his warmth and gentleness. He might be a stranger except for the way his eyes bore into hers in that split second. His eyes shift away from hers and the connection is broken. It splits her in two.

"Only if you'd like to, of course," Hans is still carrying on.

"Pardon?"

He stops and peers at her face.

"Darling, you look quite undone. Is everything alright?"

"I'm afraid I have a rather nasty headache, Hans. Perhaps I should go rest."

"Of course, darling. Let's get you home at once."

He turns them, and they're walking away from the quai. There are almost no taxis these days, with fuel so scarce, but that's never a problem for General der Infanterie Hans Dekker. He steps to the curb and a car is there. Esme feigns illness all the way home, her eyes closed and her head tipped back, and it keeps Hans quiet.

She allows Hans to escort her to the door, to squeeze her hand and to kiss her cheek again before she slips inside and falls against it with a dead thud. One hand comes up to clamp down hard over her mouth, to stifle the raw sobs bubbling up from her chest. She doesn't want Tati to hear her and come find her in this state. Her knees give out and she slides down the door, sinking to the floor.

Esme has lived her life well outside the confines of acceptable behavior for most women, and for that she's often been called base names by the less open-minded people of the world. It's never bothered her for an instant. She's had little concern for what others might think of her and her choices, and is dismissive of the largely hypocritical judgments of others. There's a word that has been uttered to her before, and she's always tossed it off with a shrug. But today it settles over her like hot, damp wool, suffocating, impossible to get free of. Today she saw it reflected in his eyes, and today, for the first time in her life, that word feels true: _whore_.

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She's brought a book this week. She needs something, anything, to keep her fingers occupied as she struggles to control her anxiety. She's alternately dreading seeing him and desperate to see him. The look in his eyes on the quai is still burned in her mind. She's not sure how to broach it, or even if she should. After all, who they are outside of this church is strictly off-limits.

As always, even though she's been straining, listening for the sound, she's still startled when she hears his steps on the stone floor behind her. She imagines she can hear hesitation in them.

She says nothing as he slides into the pew, she just turns over _Madame Bovary_ over and over in her hands, her fingernails scraping lightly across the cloth cover.

No sound comes from him, not even his throat being cleared. Esme waits him out, wanting him to show her how to proceed, what the way forward will be. But he gives her no clues, no sounds at all. Finally she can't take the silence, and this is not a conversation she can have without seeing his face. She takes a swift glance around. As always, no one is watching, no one is even in her line of sight, so she takes the chance and swivels in her pew to look at him.

What she sees steals her words. He's leaning forward, gripping the back of her pew with both hands, his knuckles white. His head is bowed. His hair, the gold waves usually raked casually off his face, is in disarray. She can barely see his face in the shadows, but his eyes are squeezed tight, crinkles forming at his temples.

When she turns, he doesn't look up or move in any way, but he seems to sense her movement. His voice is a low rasp when he finally speaks.

"Do you care for him?"

Esme shakes her head in disbelief at the question. "What?"

"Dekker. Do you care for him?"

"No! How can you ask me that?"

"He cares for you. He loves you. I saw it in his face."

"Then I'm doing my job, aren't I?" Esme can't help the tinge of venom in her voice.

That finally gets him to look at her. His face is ragged with misery. As his head snaps up and his eyes find her, his whole body leans towards her.

"I'm sorry. Please…I…it was just seeing you with him that way…"

"It's an act. Nothing more." And as quickly as her anger came, it flees, and now she feels on the verge of tears.

"I could understand, in your situation, if you found yourself…"

"What?" she says, "Find myself what?"

"Feeling something for him. It would be understandable. I would understand."

"_Understandable?_ He's a monster. I could never care for him."

"I can't do this to you, I can't demand reassurances. It's wrong." His face is twisted in anguish again, and he presses a clenched fist to his forehead.

"But you want to know, don't you? You want to know if I've slept with him."

He says nothing for a moment, warring with himself. The soldier doing his duty versus the man in love. Finally, he simply nods his head slowly, as if dreading what will come next.

"No, I haven't."

His shoulders fall a fraction. "I'm so sorry. When I saw you with him, it made me rather crazed. I knew, but somehow seeing it…"

"Seeing it was different."

"Yes."

"Your face terrified me…when you looked at me," she confesses after a moment.

His eyes snap back to hers and finally there is the compassion she knows there. He sees what his reaction has done to her, and now once again his sole concern is her well-being.

"It wasn't you. I would never judge you in that way."

"Your eyes, you looked as if I disgusted you. And that is something I would understand. There are moments when I disgust myself."

"No! You must not think that way! You're only doing what we've asked of you. It wasn't you I was thinking of, it was him. I wanted to kill him. With my bare hands. That he would dare to put his filthy hands anywhere near you…"

"Stop. Don't torment yourself with thoughts of things that haven't happened."

"But he wants to, doesn't he? He wants you?"

Esme pauses for a moment to consider how best to answer him, and that's all the verification he requires. He drops his head forward into his hands.

"He wants me. That doesn't mean he'll have me."

"Can you keep holding him off?"

For the first time ever, Esme willingly looks away from his face, back towards the glass in front. Because she honestly doesn't know the answer. That she's been able to keep Hans at arms' length for this long is nothing short of a miracle. But it can't go on. As long as she allows him in, encourages him, makes him think she cares, he will want her. And there will come a time when her excuses no longer work, and she will have to decide what to do.

"Maybe we should leave."

His words, spoken so softly into the air behind her, and with so little fanfare, make her spin around to face him again.

"Leave? What are you talking about?"

"I can't leave you like this. With him. Now that I've seen it… seen him with you, I can't stand it. We could leave. We could run. Maybe to my family in England. Or just anywhere."

Esme can only blink at him in disbelief that he would suggest something so outrageous, so desperate, so _impossible_. But just the fact that he wants to is all that she needs to give her the strength to keep going.

"We can't do that," she says softly. "You know that. I could never get out of the country."

He sighs heavily and shakes his head. "I know."

"And besides, you would regret it, abandoning the work we're doing here."

He looks up at her then, his eyes sharp, his jaw set. "I wouldn't regret anything that would get you away from him."

All she can do is smile softly at him. Slowly, tentatively, he reaches out and rests his fingertips on the back of her pew. Just as slowly, she reaches out and covers his fingers with her own.

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_Early June, 1944_

Esme stops short as she passes between two columns into the aisle of the church. He's there already. He's sitting in his regular spot, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped lightly, head bowed.

They've had so little opportunity to get to know each other physically. She's never felt his arms around her, never seen his face as he really lets go and laughs, never seen him wake up in the morning. In so many ways they are still strangers, but in others she knows him better than she knows herself. And she can feel his anxiety and tension just from the set of his shoulders, the way his hands are linked together. He feels it, and then so does she.

The click of her heels on the flagstones has alerted him that she's here, and his head snaps up. Their eyes meet for just a moment. Esme hoards each of these moments, each tiny glimpse of his face, like a miser. Each time gives her one more detail to add to the reserves in her mind. Then his discipline kicks in, and he looks away like she's a stranger. Esme falls back into character, too, and slides into her pew without another glance at him.

"You're early," she murmurs.

"I'm anxious."

"Everyone is anxious," she responds. And there is much to be anxious about. Because four days ago, the Allies stormed the beaches at Normandy, and now they control that whole section of the coast. The Germans have been unable to repel them. No one knows what it means, but there are Allied soldiers on French soil.

"I don't know what will happen next," he says.

She chuckles in spite of herself. "Do you really think anyone does? Even the generals running the whole thing don't have the faintest idea."

"I know, you're right. It's only that I'm worried about you. The situation could begin to change very quickly."

"And I'll react very quickly," she says, trying to make her voice as reassuring as possible. The last thing he needs now is to be worrying about her safety. She can look after that herself. "So…" she begins hesitantly. "Do you think they'll make it to Paris?" She almost always resists the urge to press him for information. He hates to keep her in the dark, and he'll tell her what he knows, but he's right, it's dangerous for both of them for her to know anything not absolutely necessary.

He sighs heavily. "I don't know. Perhaps. They're trying. And there is…"

"What?"

"We're trying to help them out from this side. Cutting power lines, sabotaging rail lines, that sort of thing."

Esme nods tightly. "Hans has complained. Disruptions, shipments that were delayed. He was furious."

He snorts derisively, a bitter sound she's never heard from him. "Good. I hope he's _terribly _put out," he says sarcastically.

"You mustn't be jealous," she scolds gently.

"I can't help it," he sighs. "I'm jealous that he gets to see the color of your hair in the sunlight whenever he likes and I don't."

This time Esme can't bring herself to scold him or even to continue pressing him for information, she can only duck her head and smile.

For the first time since this all began, she wishes the two of them could stay right here in their respective pews forever. The future has become so dangerous and uncertain. She'd rather take just these stilted, stolen moments with him than risk losing it all in the storm that's to come.


	7. The Battle for Paris, Part One

**There is a new Live Journal entry that covers this chapter and the next, which will be the last chapter. I found such amazing pictures when I was researching this part, so I went a little crazy. Go check it out!**

**http://resistance-esme(dot)livejournal(dot)com/**

**Many thanks, as always, to WriteOnTime, for beta'ing and being just awesome in general.  
**

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_August, 1944_

On Tuesday everything is the same.

On Wednesday, the Gendarmerie goes on strike.

Word reverberates through Paris like a gunshot in a silent hall. The local police force is on strike. In an occupied country. It is a breathtaking show of defiance, and it means that the rumors might be true. Resistance fighters have organized under the banner of the French Forces of the Interior, under the remote command of General Charles de Gaulle, and they are advancing through the south towards Paris.

By Thursday, Parisians are holding their breath and waiting to see what comes next. The streets are quiet as every Parisian stays safely in their homes, avoiding any possible trouble in the streets.

Every Parisian except for Esme Benoit. It's Thursday, and she has an appointment which she intends to keep. She dresses with her usual care, spends perhaps a little longer on her hair than usual since she knows he likes her hair, and she heads downstairs to collect her bag and go. Tati is there at the foot of the stairs, large pale eyes terrified, twisting her fingers together in anxiety.

"What is it, Tati?" Esme says with a hint of impatience.

"You're still going, Madame?"

"Of course, Tati. You know I go out every Thursday morning." They've kept up this silly ruse that Tati doesn't know exactly what she's doing, even after all this time. By now it's just comforting, both of them pretending that everything is alright.

"But I've heard that it's dangerous out there!"

Esme sighs and rest her hand on Tati's arm. "Tati, it's been dangerous for quite some time, at least for me. I can take care of myself."

"Of course, Madame," she whispers. "Just be careful."

"I always am."

Esme makes her way quickly to the church, along the path she's walked once a week for over two years. The streets are quiet, nearly deserted. And yet, even with an almost complete lack of people, the tension in the air is still palpable. The atmosphere in Paris feels nearly flammable, as if all it would take is a spark to set the whole city ablaze. It's an unsettling feeling, and Esme is relieved to finally reach the cool quiet of the church.

But for only the second time in two years, he doesn't come. Like the other time, she waits well over an hour, long past when she's sure he won't be there. Like before, she can't bring herself to go, to abandon hope.

This time is different, though. With the unsettled situation, the complete lack of concrete information, the possibility of chaos and violence breaking out at any moment, his absence hits her so much harder. As she slowly makes her way back home the way she came through the sultry August heat, she thinks he could be anywhere, facing any number of dangers. And how will she ever know? How will she ever find him? The idea that he might be swept away from her forever in the madness that's coming leaves her desolate.

As she walks blindly down Rue St. Germain, a German covered-troop-transport truck speeds past her in the other direction. She cranes around to look and it's filled with German soldiers, but they are not sitting in ordered rows as one would expect. They are crammed in, hanging on at odd angles, as if there are too many of them squeezed in, or they piled in too hastily. Within moments, two jeeps scream past as well. She catches a glimpse of gold braid and insignia. Officers. Also, a gaggle of enlisted men squeezed in the back. The whole thing feels off, frantic, out of character for these disciplined, ordered military men.

Odd, certainly, but in and of itself the incident tells her nothing. Trapped here in this tense, frozen city, there is no way to know anything at all.

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_Friday, August 18, 1944_

The next morning, Esme is just settling in with her second cup of coffee when Madame Chernot appears at the back door, knocking urgently.

"Come in, come in," Esme urges her as she opens the door to her. "What's the matter?"

"On strike!" Madame Chernot says.

"The Gendarmes? Yes, I know."

"No, the whole city!" Madame Chernot breathes, her withered old face lit up with excitement. "Has Tati not been to the market today?"

"No, not yet."

Madame Chernot waves a hand in annoyance and Esme senses that she wants to launch into a lecture about how lazy Tati is not to have done the shopping already and that Esme is too soft on her, but then she catches herself and remembers the purpose of her visit. "The whole city is shut up tight! Every shop, every office! No one is working! The city is at a standstill!"

"What does it mean?"

"The Resistance!" Madame Chernot trills.

"What about them?"

"They've seized the Hôtel de Ville!"

"What? How?"

"No one knows, but the Germans haven't even tried to take it back. They're all holed up in the Hôtel de Crillon and they aren't coming out. Word is the Resistance has seized buildings all over the city!" Madame Chernot is more energized than Esme has ever seen her. "This is it, Mademoiselle! We are showing those vermin what's what!" In her enthusiasm she has forgotten their carefully crafted charade, that Esme is the consort of the Nazi general and a friend to the occupiers. Esme decides in an instant that she won't remind her. She's done playing this part. And if Madame Chernot's news is true, it doesn't matter anymore anyway.

Esme steps back and considers what's happened. He told her the situation might change quickly, and apparently he's right. The whole thing is beginning to blow up out on the streets. Madame Chernot has said that the Germans are still in their headquarters, but will they stay there? Surely, at some point, they'll take to the streets to fight back against the uprising? That's when things will really become dangerous, even for the innocent bystanders.

The practical woman in Esme immediately begins to assess the situation. Things will undoubtedly deteriorate, and who knows for how long? Will Paris be under seige? They will need food. Will the Germans ransack the city? They might have to secure the house. Her eyes flicker to Madame Chernot, elderly and utterly alone.

"Madame, you should come and stay with me, at least until things quiet back down."

"Oh, nonsense!" the old woman smiles, waving a hand absently. "That house served me just fine through thirty years of marriage with André, and it will serve me just fine now."

Esme takes a moment to reconsider her strategy, because Madame Chernot simply cannot stay there alone. "But Madame," she pleads. "Things may become so difficult. And all I have is Tati. Who knows how long it may be until we can get food at the markets? We'll have to make do with what's in the pantry and you know what a terrible cook Tati is. Won't you come and help me?"

It is exactly the right tack to take with Madame Chernot, for she's on her feet in a flash, headed to the pantry, muttering under her breath about silly little country girls as she takes inventory of what's on hand. Madame Chernot takes charge of the kitchen and by the afternoon, Tati has helped her bring over all the useful food from her house, along with her necessities, and Esme has her ensconced in one of the second floor bedrooms. Esme can breathe a small sigh of relief. At least one problem is solved. Madame Chernot is now safely under her roof.

And not a moment too soon, as by early evening, angry French youths are roaming the empty streets in packs, shouting obscenities about the Nazis, breaking bottles, burning Nazi propaganda posters. It's all just little shows of defiance, but still, they add to the feeling of Paris being stretched taut like a bow, about to snap.

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_Saturday, August 19, 1944_

Madame Chernot and Tati set out early to see if anything is open, if any food is to be gotten. They come back completely empty-handed, but full of gossip and enthusiasm.

"They're pulling out!" Madame Chernot chortles gleefully.

"Are you sure?" Esme presses, disbelieving. Might this long nightmare finally, finally be ending?

"Well, only some of them, but we saw a few of them in trucks heading for the city gates, didn't we, Tati?"

Tati nods in wide-eyed, speechless agreement.

"The rumor is that they've already turned over parts of Paris to the Resistance. There seems to be a lot of confusion about which parts are to be for the Resistance and which are to be for the Germans, however. No one really knows what's going on, not even the Germans. Everything is all in chaos. But we passed a couple of them packing up their house, didn't we, Tati?" She elbows Tati, who again nods breathlessly.

"You seem to be enjoying this a bit too much, Madame Chernot," Esme scolds her fondly.

"Bah! I had to live long enough to see my country fall into the hands of those vipers. I'm just happy that I've lived long enough to see my countrymen give them the boot and kick them back out."

Esme can't help but laugh, and hopes that in the coming days there's still so much to be excited about.

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_Sunday, August 20, 1944_

Instead of the bells of St. Germain des Prés that Esme is used to waking to on Sunday mornings, it's the sound of gunshots that shatter the still of the morning. Esme scrambles out of bed and throws her silk floral robe on hastily. She's still tying the sash as she nears the bottom of the stairs. Madame Chernot is already there, a wide wool shawl thrown over her old-fashioned nightdress. Tati is behind her, craning on tip-toe to see out the window over Madame Chernot's shoulder, her light hair still up in pincurls. Madame has one shutter cracked slightly, swiveling her head to see what might be happening.

"What is it? What's happened?" Esme asks as she rushes into the front parlor behind them.

"I can't tell yet. I can't see anything," Madame Chernot throws over her shoulder. "But I can hear the shouting. They must be out on Boulevard Saint Germain, or perhaps over on Rue Danton."

Another volley of shots ring out, sounding closer this time, and all three women jump. There is a moment of silence after as they all breathe heavily, glancing around apprehensively. Esme is the first one to pull herself together.

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" she snaps, "If they're about to have a gun fight on my front steps, I'd prefer not to be caught in my nightclothes. Let's get dressed."

Her words snap the other two out of it, and all three women scramble for the stairs. An hour later, all are dressed, and Madame Chernot is in the kitchen harassing Tati over breakfast. Esme stands guard at the front parlor windows, peering through the shutters, listening to the gunshots. Sometimes they sound farther away, sometimes startlingly close. She still can see nothing, but with her house situated at the bottom of a cul-de-sac, this is not surprising. The not-knowing is eating her alive, however, and shortly after breakfast, she determines to go out.

Madame Chernot wants to accompany her, but Esme begs her to stay and keep Tati calm, as the girl is on the knife-edge of hysteria all the time. Once again, appealing to the practical problems does the trick with Madame Chernot, and she agrees to stay in and keep an eye on the house. Before Esme leaves, she retrieves the pistol Hans brought her several months ago. He told her it made him uneasy, her living alone with only Tati in the house. At the time, Esme thought bitterly that _he_ was the only person she really had to fear, but she only smiled and nodded and tucked the offending object away on a high shelf in the pantry. Now, however, she's grateful to have it, and hands it over to Madame Chernot and Tati, in case of the worst.

Rue de Jardinier is absolutely deserted and still when she finally steps outside. It's rather chilling, and leaves her feeling as if she's the last person on earth until another round of gunshots ring out. Now that she's outside, she can pinpoint their direction; to the east, and only a few blocks, if she's not mistaken.

Esme walks out to Boulevard Saint Germaine and looks east towards Boulevard Saint Michel. And now she sees the source of the gunshots. A large German troop transport vehicle lies on its side right in the intersection of St. Michel and St. Germaine. It's been upended there on purpose, she surmises, as a group of men are using it as a barricade, crouched low behind it, each holding rifles. They are not in uniform, and from the looks of them, they are all French. There are perhaps ten of them, mostly young men in their twenties, but two are considerably older. They are…ordinary. When Esme imagined the fighters of the Resistance that were rumored to be advancing on Paris, she imagined an army. But these just look like men off the streets. And that's what they are, she realizes. This is no army marching into Paris to free them. This is the citizens of Paris, rising up to kick out the invaders. Paris has taken to the streets to reclaim its own.

The men behind the truck are shouting, both to each other and to others she can't see…hiding in nearby buildings, perhaps? As she watches, shots ring out and the men behind the truck duck down, making themselves as small as possible. The shots seem to come from further down Boulevard St. Michel, towards the Sorbonne. The men stay huddled behind their makeshift roadblock, but answering shots ring out from a building across the intersection. Resistance snipers are there, helping to hold off the Nazis, defending the blockade. Boulevard St. Michel, the road they have blocked, leads to the St. Michel bridge. On the other side of the bridge, on the Île de la Cité, is the Prefecture of the Police. Has the Resistance taken the Prefecture? Esme's mind spins with the possibilities. This is really happening.

As she watches, spellbound, there are angry shouts from the sniper's lair in the building. A banner is unfurled from an upper window, black with a symbol hastily painted in white. It's a large V with a croix de Lorraine nestled into the middle.

"Madame, get yourself inside to safety!"

A voice behind Esme makes her jump. He's young, dark-haired and dark-eyed, his face sweaty and lined with dirt. His shirt is hanging half-opened. He's clutching a rifle and he has a belt full of spare bullets slung across his chest.

"It's not safe out here! Go back in!" he repeats urgently.

"Are you with the Resistance?" she asks.

He snorts a humorless laugh. "I suppose you could say that. On this day, every true Frenchman is, don't you think?"

Esme nods, then reaches out to grasp his forearm.

"Look," she says quickly, "My house is there, just at the end of Rue de Jardinier. I don't have much, but there is a little food and it's safe. If you need shelter, come and I will help."

He looks into her face long and hard. He seems so young, maybe no older than twenty, but his eyes are hard and tired, years older than the rest of him. Finally he nods.

"Thank you, Madame…?"

"Benoit. Esme Benoit."

His surprise shows on his face and he leans back nearly imperceptibly. Ah, she thinks, he's heard of me. General Dekker's whore.

"But I thought you were…"

"No," Esme shakes her head firmly. "It's all been a lie." And this is it; for the first time since she's started, she's about to confess the truth to this stranger on the street. It's the beginning of the end, of letting go of the whole long, hateful nightmare. "I've been meeting with a contact, passing on information."

His eyes widen in shock. "You're a _spy_?"

It's Esme's turn to laugh without humor now. "A spy. How very glamorous that sounds. They came to my house, I listened carefully, I passed on everything I heard. Not so very much in the scheme of things."

"It was brave," he says, his face gentler now. "But Madame Benoit," he continues, "It's very dangerous out here. Please go back in. The lads are holding the blockade while the men across the bridge try to take the Prefecture, but they're low on ammunition. The Germans might overtake us at any moment."

Esme nods and steps aside to let him go, but then halts him once more. "Please, can you tell me…the flag there, what does it stand for?"

He looks back over his shoulder towards the building, and for the first time a small smile plays at the corner of his mouth. "It's the flag of the French Forces of the Interior. The Resistance army. They've taken that building."

Another round of gunshots ring out, making them both flinch. A fine spray of dust erupts from the building next to them and Esme realizes a bullet has hit it, sending concrete powder everywhere.

"Go!" the boy shouts to her, "And good luck, Madame Benoit!"

"Good luck to you, too," she calls before racing away, back down Rue de Jardiner towards her house.

Once she hits the door, she slams it behind her, leaning on it, breathing heavily. Madame Chernot and Tati hear the noise and come racing from the kitchen in the back of the house.

"What is it?" Madame Chernot calls, "What's happening?"

"An uprising," Esme breathes. "The Resistance, taking back the city. They're blockading streets, fighting off the Germans."

"Oh, thank heavens!" Madame Chernot cries, clapping her hands together.

"We need a flag!" Esme says urgently.

"A flag, Madame?" Tati asks, confused.

"Yes! Something to hang out of the window. See what you can find, Tati!"

Tati comes back from the kitchen waving a dish towel, but Esme shakes her head.

"Too small," she states. "It needs to make a statement."

She strides into the parlor and seizes one of the heavy dark drapes over the parlor windows. With one firm yank she rips it free of the rod, and it falls in a heap on the floor.

"Here, help me, Madame Chernot! I want everyone in Paris to know just where the residents of this house stand. Tati, do we have any paint?"

"There is a bit of whitewash the handyman left in the cellar. I'll get it!"

They are energized by the project at hand, and within minutes, the curtain is stretched out on the parlor floor and Esme has painted it with the symbol she saw on the banner outside, explaining to Madame Chernot and Tati as she goes. Once it's done, the three of them hoist it out of the dining room window, securing it on the inside of the sill. Esme steps out front for just a moment, to examine their handiwork and how they've marked the house, but gunshots are still ringing out from Boulevard St. Michel, so she doesn't linger.

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_Monday, August 21, 1944_

It is nearly nine at night when the sharp banging on the front door shatters the tense silence in the house, causing Esme, Madame Chernot and Tati to all jump out of their chairs. It has been another long day of tense idleness. Late the night before, a rag-tag little group of Resistance fighters made their way to the front door, sent by the boy from the street. They were hungry and exhausted after finally outlasting the Germans they were fighting. Madame Chernot made them dinner, and Esme poured the wine. They ate gratefully, but were unable to tell them much about anything outside of their own little street-corner war.

The men stayed just long enough to wash up before they left again, off to find another fight where they might do some good.

The women barely slept that night, choosing to sit up in the parlor and just listen to the cacophonous night. They each dozed off in turn, waking after a fitful hour or two of sleep. Monday passes in the same edgy silence, and they are settling in for another anxious night of listening when the pounding begins.

Esme stands and crosses to the door, leaving Madame Chernot and Tati clutching each other's hands.

"Who is it?" Esme calls through the door.

"It's Hans," comes back the disconnected voice. Esme's eyes fall closed and she rests her forehead on the door for a minute, trying to gather her strength. She had hoped he would never reappear, that he would be so caught up with the war being waged on the streets that he'd never be able to get away to come find her. She should have known better. She should have known that he would find a way to get to her no matter what. He is too persistent to just walk away from her.

"Madame Chernot, I need a moment, please?" Esme murmurs.

"Are you sure it's safe?"

"He means no harm. But it's better if I do this alone."

Madame Chernot nods tightly and pulls Tati after her into the kitchen. Once they are gone, Esme takes one more bracing breath and opens the door. Hans is standing there, completely unkempt. He's still in his uniform, but the top three buttons are undone, and she can see his sweat-stained undershirt beneath it. His black boots, usually shining and hard, are scuffed and coated with dust. He's hatless, and his ordinarily fastidiously-groomed blonde hair is a mess. He's got a smudge of dirt across one high cheekbone, and his eyes look as if he's aged ten years since she last saw him. Her flag, painted haphazardly on the parlor curtain, hangs clutched in his fist.

His eyes cut into hers as she opens the door to face him, and he raises the ripped flag.

"What is the meaning of this?" his voice is low, but so full of menace that Esme has a momentary attack of nerves. But swallowing it down, she squares her shoulders and raises her chin. _This is it,_ she thinks, _time to drive in the knife_.

"I wanted to be perfectly clear about where my allegiance lies."

They simply stare at each other for a long time as Hans works through what she's said. In spite of everything, Esme feels a flash of pity for what she's about to do to him. But then she reminds herself that this frantic, desperate man who is in love with her has a hidden side, one that has killed tens of thousands of people. And _that_ man deserves everything she's about to do to him and more.

"I thought your allegiance was to me, Esme," he finally says softly.

"My allegiance is to France. A _free _France. It has always been to France," she says evenly, with no emotion.

Hans rakes his hand through his hair in an uncharacteristic display of confusion. "Do you mean to tell me…"

"Everything you said, Hans. Every word, dutifully passed on to my contact, to be used to plot against you. Yes."

His mouth opens as if to say something, but nothing comes out. It hangs open as the shock and disbelief fill his eyes. He's breathing hard, his chest heaving.

"How could you do this to me?" he finally whispers hoarsely.

Now it's Esme's turn to be stunned into disbelief. "How could I do this to _you_? How could you do it to _them_?"

"Do what to whom?"

"The fifteen thousand Parisians you locked into the Velo d'Hiver before packing them into trains and sending them to die in your camps!" Esme can't control her emotions any more, two years of her repressed anger and hatred beginning to bubble up and spill out. "And God only knows what other atrocities you've committed that I've never heard about!"

Hans sputters momentarily in disbelief. "But…that was…Esme, you must understand, I was just following orders, doing my job. You must see that."

"Orders? You were just following orders? Well, I'm sure those people you slaughtered will understand once you explain that you were just doing your job. Except that they can't be made to understand, can they, Hans? Because they're all dead. Dead by your hand."

"You make it sound as if I murdered people in the streets, Esme. Those people were not…"

"Those people were free French citizens, just the same as me! And yes! Your hands are every bit as bloody as if you slit their throats with your bare hands!"

"I suppose it's too complex for a woman like you to grasp, but there are serious philosophies at work here, Esme. Our mission will make for a better world and..."

The look of pure revulsion twisting Esme's face stops Hans in his tracks.

"You disgust me, you and your vile philosophies. We're talking about _people_. People with lives and families and futures."

"So because of your soft little sympathetic heart, you betrayed me," he growls, his voice turning hard and bitter.

"No, Hans, you've betrayed mankind. I just did what I could to make sure you paid for it. I just hope it helped, that everything I endured was for some good."

"Endured?" he spits angrily. "So every time I touched you…every time you smiled at me, encouraged me, every bit was a lie?"

"Yes," she says with a tired sigh, unwilling to exert the energy it would take to soften the blow. She doesn't really want to soften it anyway. He doesn't deserve it. Just in case she might have forgotten, his vile words tonight have starkly underlined for her exactly what all of this was for. "I did whatever it took to keep you coming back and talking."

Hans takes a sudden large stride forward, across the threshold and into the entryway. He throws her flag to the ground and his hands snake out, clamping down around her upper arms. Esme takes a step back, but she's moved too late and she can't wrench free of his grip.

"Hans…" she begins.

"You lying little bitch!" he growls, shaking her hard.

"Let me go," she says as calmly as she can. Fear is coursing through her now, and her mind is racing, trying to determine the best way to handle him to get herself out of what's rapidly become a very dangerous situation. She always thought what she was doing would get her killed, but she has always imagined it would be in front of a firing squad or at the end of a noose. It has never occurred to her that she might die like this, at the hands of Hans, furious and betrayed. But suddenly it seems like a real possibility. And in that flash of fearing for her own mortality, she finds she only regrets one thing, and that's not being able to see _him _one more time. His face flickers in her mind, blotting out Hans for a moment.

"I came here to rescue you, to get you out of here. I was going to take you home with me. I was going to _marry_ you, and _this_ is what I get from you? This is how you repay my devotion? All this time, holding me off at arms' length, blaming your husband for your frigidity...are you even _married_?"

He's becoming unhinged, his already-messy hair falling across his forehead, his eyes wide and crazed. He's still shaking her, and his grip on her arms is painfully tight. Esme twists again and he only grips her harder, bruising her. She looks into his face, which is at once so familiar and now also that of a stranger.

"Madame?"

Tati's quiet, timid voice cuts through the tension in the room like a knife. In surprise, Hans leans back away from her, although he doesn't let her go. Esme turns her head to look, and sees Tati standing in the doorway, pale eyes wide with fear, arm raised, hand shaking wildly where she's clutching the pistol.

"Put that gun down, you stupid girl," Hans snarls.

Tati merely shakes her head slightly. Her hand is still shaking, but the gun remains pointed right at Hans. Esme gives one more hard twist and finally breaks his hold on her arms. She stumbles back towards Tati.

"Give it to me, Tati," she murmurs. Esme pulls the gun from the girl's hand, and Tati nearly collapses as the tension leaves her. Esme pushes Tati behind her, re-training the gun on Hans. He takes a step towards her.

"She couldn't do it," he sneers.

"No, she couldn't," Esme acknowledges. "But I can. And I will. I think I've proven at this point that I will do whatever I have to do. Don't make me do this."

"You think I'm just going to walk away with a shrug? After what you've done, you filthy, lying whore?"

Esme bristles at his use of that word, the one that cuts right to the heart of her fears, but she makes herself stand up straighter and she extends her arm further. "Walk away or be carried out, Hans. It's up to you. Leave now, while you still can. I'm giving you a chance, which is more than you did for them."

They stand frozen, eyes locked for a long time. Esme's hand does not shake like Tati's did, and the barrel of the gun stays trained on his chest. Without a word, Esme slowly cocks the safety off with her thumb and the click echoes in the silent room louder that a gunshot would.

Slowly, as he realizes that she really intends to do it, the light of fury in his eyes fades. His shoulders sag as the weight of the last several days seems to overtake him all at once. He doesn't say a word. He just turns his face away as he moves towards the door. He kicks her homemade flag out of the way, then strides wordlessly through the door and out into the night.

Esme is still standing there, pointing the gun at the open front door, several moments later when Madame Chernot steps up behind her. The old woman's wrinkled little fingers close over Esme's hand, gently prying the gun free. Esme finally lets it go and closes her eyes. Tati pulls her back by the shoulders and she falls into the nearby chair. It's only then that she lets the sobs overtake her.


	8. The Battle for Paris, Part Two

The last chapter. Thanks so much to everyone who stopped to read this little story. It's close to my heart.

Thanks to justaskalice for pre-reading all the way through and cheer-leading.

And a million thanks to WriteOnTime for beta'ing and so many other things.

One more plug for the live journal page. Pictures and film of the Battle for Paris and even a recording of The Marsellaise. http://resistance-esme(dot)livejournal(dot)com/

**Stephenie Meyer owns any Twilight characters that may appear in this story. The remainder is my original work. No copying or reproduction of this work is permitted without my express written authorization**.

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_Tuesday, August 22, 1944_

The morning after Hans' visit dawns as the last two have. Gunshots ring out across the city, shouting reverberates off the buildings, there is scattered smoke on the horizon. Esme walks out as far as the Pont Neuf to see the state of things. At every major intersection, there are makeshift road blocks. Often they are overturned commandeered German army vehicles. Sometimes, they are formal arrangements of wooden crossbeams and looped barbed wire. In some places, the neighbors have come out and wrenched up the paving stones to make crude walls.

The barricades are manned, sometimes by trained soldiers, but often by ordinary French men and the occasional woman, armed with whatever ragtag weapons that have managed to survive the occupation in private hands. There are still Germans fighting back, but the air is one of barely-controlled chaos. The Germans seem to have no clear sense of purpose, no over-arching command. There is no order to them. They are just ragtag groups of soldiers, trying to hold back the Resistance fighters at every corner. The road blocks have worked. There are no vehicles moving. Whatever German trucks haven't been tipped over to block the streets are parked abandoned on the side of the road, or commandeered by the Resistance fighters and crudely painted with the emblem of the French Forces of the Interior.

There is near-constant gunfire, the pops echoing off the buildings in the empty streets, and punctuated by the shouting and the screaming. Esme wanders vaguely in the direction of the Pont Neuf, if only because it's the way to the church, and to him; not that she thinks he's there now, but because the route is comforting and familiar, and her feet seek it out on their own. She only makes it as far as the corner of Rue des Artistes and Rue Dauphine when the pandemonium halts her.

There is shouting, so much of it that it makes her cringe back against the buildings. Ahead of her, in the square where several streets converge, there has been heavy fighting underway for some time. There are Resistance fighters huddled behind an impressive wall of sandbags topped with barbed wire that spans the width of Rue Dauphine at an angle. It's reinforced on either end with a commandeered German jeep. This wall is far better manned than the others Esme has come across. There are perhaps thirty fighters here, maybe more.

Across the square, at the head of Rue Mazarine, are the Germans. They've hunkered down behind a troop transport. Its canvas sides are ripped and riddled with bullet holes. Esme catches only glimpses of the soldiers behind it, but they are in every bit the disarray that Hans was in when she saw him last night.

In addition to the Resistance fighters swarming the barricades, there are snipers in the upper stories of the nearby buildings. Esme catches a glimpse of bodies in a building fronting Rue de l'Ancienne Comédies, and a puff of smoke just after gunshots ring out from the windows on Rue Dauphine.

The two sides trade gunshots back and forth for a few minutes, each soldier in turn poking up just long enough to squeeze off a shot at the other side before retreating back down. A Resistance fighter makes a break for it, darting out from behind the barricade towards the sniper's nest across the square. A shot rings out from the German side and he falls, propelled forward by his own momentum. Esme starts involuntarily, nearly ready to run out to the man and offer help instinctively, but fierce retaliatory gunfire from the Resistance side pins her down. The Germans return fire, and for a few minutes the noise is deafening. Chips of concrete rain down on Esme where she's crouched against the building as bullets ricochet off the walls around her. The fallen man lies helpless and unmoving in the middle of the square.

No one comes to his aid. Of course not, Esme thinks. Who can come? Who would come? The hospitals likely have no ambulances, if there are even still doctors there to help. The thought is chilling. She sees now that the city is in near-anarchy. For the Germans most certainly don't hold it any longer, but there are enough of them to keep the Resistance from definitively seizing command.

And the Resistance? Esme knows better than anyone how they've had to survive during the war. Scarcely acknowledging each other's existences as they wage their private little wars. The Resistance certainly has no plan of governance ready to execute when the Germans leave. So what then?

A truck comes barreling towards the square down Rue Mazarine, behind the Germans. There is more chaos and shouting and gunshots, but Esme is quickly able to discern that it's a truckload of Resistance fighters, and they've now effectively cornered this pocket of German soldiers. Fearing the violence about to erupt before her, Esme runs back the way she came, back towards her house. If madness descends on Paris once the Germans are gone, she wants to be securely inside her house when it happens.

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Later that night, as they settle in for another tense, sleepless night listening to the gunfire, there is pounding on the door again. Tati shrieks and Madame Chernot pats her arm in reassurance.

"Don't answer it!" she hisses at Esme.

"We don't know who it might be," Esme reasons.

"What if it's him? Dekker?" Madame Chernot implores her.

"He won't come back here, Madame, I promise you that. Look, I have the gun." Esme waves it lightly as she crosses to the entry way. It is a bit mad to open the door at this time, but she can't help the desperate hope that somehow Mr. Stoker has been able to find her. He will try as soon as he can, of that she's certain. But there's no telling if he'll succeed, or, given the situation out on the streets, if he'll even survive to. That thought has been clawing at the back of Esme's mind since the fighting first broke out, but dwelling on it only makes it worse and doesn't help him. So she presses it away, to be dealt with later, when this is all over, if it ever is.

The pounding at the door comes again, this time accompanied by a voice. "Madame Benoit? It's Alec. From the street two days ago? You said if I needed…"

Esme wrenches the door open before he can finish his sentence. The young, dark-haired Resistance soldier from the street is there, holding up a badly wounded man. Another young soldier stands beside him, a wounded man in his arms as well.

"The Red Cross is in the city, providing medical care to both sides; but because of the road blocks, they can't get anywhere near here. And we had to get them off the streets," Alec explains in a rush. He is wounded too, Esme sees, a gash on his forehead, caked in dried blood.

She reaches out instinctively to help him bear the weight of his friend, and in moments, Madame Chernot and Tati have appeared as well, pulling the men in, lowering the two worst ones to the floor.

Madame Chernot stands over them for just a moment, hands on her hips as she thinks. Then she snaps into motion.

"We'll have to nurse them here in the parlor," she says, moving to start shoving chairs back against the walls and out of the way. "The bedrooms upstairs are too spread out. Tati, go drag down the mattresses from the beds and all the linens you can lay your hands on."

Tati rushes up the stairs to do as she's bid as Madame Chernot kneels next to one of the wounded men, who is moaning softly now.

"I was a volunteer nurse in the Great War," she says absently. "Mademoiselle Benoit, why don't you take those two to the kitchen to get cleaned up and fed. They've got wounds that will need tending, too, but these boys come first."

Esme watches Madame Chernot begin to seek out pulses and peer under eyelids. Just like that, her parlor floor is a hospital. She turns to Alec and the other mobile soldier.

"Come with me, gentlemen," she says as she leads them back to the kitchen.

Alec and his friend, Charles, are grateful to collapse into chairs at Esme's kitchen table. They rest their heads on their arms as she scrounges up some cheese and the remainder of a loaf of bread Madame Chernot was able to bake that morning. There is still a bottle of preserves in the pantry, along with some dry summer sausage. The boys set upon it like ravenous dogs as Esme pours them generous glasses of wine and they tell her all they know.

The Germans are all but done for in Paris, they say. There are bands of soldiers still fighting it out on the streets, but without reinforcements and ammunition sent from their central command, they're being swiftly overrun. The Germans still hold a number of public buildings. They have the Hôtel Crillon, their headquarters, still, and several others. Those are the German high command and they are well-guarded. Getting them out will not be easy. But the Resistance strategy, such as it exists, is to bring the street fighting up to the very doorways. Once they realize that the frontline of German soldiers has been eradicated, the hope is that they will surrender.

"What then?" Esme asks them, leaning forward on the table. "Who's going to run things here? Pétain in the south? He's as bad as the Nazis!"

Alec snorts. "That coward will hightail it and run with the Germans the second he hears they're leaving. He's cast his lot with them, there's nothing for him in France anymore."

"So who? There must be a government," Esme presses.

"DeGaulle, of course," Charles chimes in. "He'll take over once the Germans are gone."

"But he's in Algeria! What can he do from there?"

Alec leans forward, his voice dropping instinctively, even though no one is there to hear him. Looking into his face, Esme is once again stuck by how old he seemed, for one so young. This war has stolen his youth away. He is a handsome young man. He should be asking out pretty girls and taking them dancing. Instead he sits in her kitchen, filthy and bleeding, still automatically clutching his rifle in his lap as if he can't bear to be parted from it.

"I'll tell you what we're hearing on the streets. They say that the Americans are coming."

"The Americans?"

"Yes, from the north, where they invaded Normandy. They say DeGaulle has asked them to come. And they say the Free French Army is on the way up from the south. They'll secure the city until DeGaulle can get here and take over."

"How long till they get here?"

Alec sits back, weariness overtaking his features again. "Impossible to say. The roads, the rail lines… they are all a mess." Alec laughed humorlessly, "The Resistance did it all. That's what I was doing up until two weeks ago. Sneaking out to help blow up the rail lines so the Germans couldn't get their troops through. Of course, now we can't get _our _troops through, either."

Esme sits back, too, aching and endlessly tired. But there is no time to rest now. There are wounded men in her living room and more here in the kitchen.

"Let's take a look at that cut on your head, and then you can clean up and get to bed," Esme says, standing.

"Thank you, Madame," Alec says, "but once we've cleaned up, Charles and I will be on our way. It's not over out there."

"No, I suppose it's not."

Alec catches her by the wrist. "But Madame, may we send other injured to you? There's almost nowhere to go."

Esme shrugs. "I'll do my best. Yes, send them."

Once she's bandaged the gash on Alec's forehead and cleaned Charles' hand where he ripped it open on barbed wire, she leaves the boys to wash up and returns to the parlor. It has been transformed. Madame Chernot and Tati have moved all the furniture to the walls and hauled many of the lighter chairs out of the room entirely. They've brought down mattresses and bedding from the upstairs bedrooms and made several cots in two neat rows on the floor. There are only the two patients at present, but clearly Madame Chernot is anticipating more. She's cleaned the worst of the grime from them and removed their filthy clothing. One has his shoulder tightly bandaged. The other, the one Alec had been carrying, has a mass of bandaging wrapped around his midsection and blood is already seeping through it.

"That one is in a bad way," Madame Chernot murmurs. "They're both shot, but the other is clean, through and through. A little washing it out and rest and he'll be good as new. This other one, he bleeds. I think he needs a surgeon."

Esme has no medical training, but just the little she's seen makes her inclined to agree.

"We'll just have to do what we can. The boys say the Red Cross can't get through and there's no one at the hospital."

"We'll do our best for him, then, won't we, Tati?"

Tati looks up from where she's ripping Esme's fine cotton sheets into strips for bandages and nods solemnly.

Half an hour later Alec and Charles take their leave. They press Esme with their thanks, and she presses them with food and a bottle of Hans' favorite brandy for later.

The three women are up most of the night tending to the badly wounded man, Gaston, as Alec told them. Over the course of the night, four more men are brought to the door, all suffering from gunshot wounds of various degrees of severity. Only one is as bad as Gaston's, although his is in his leg. Madame Chernot has made sure there are beds for them all, and she and Tati are doing an admirable job nursing them, but the worst two need a doctor and none is to be found.

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_Thursday, August 24, 1944_

Gaston's agonized moans wake them from fitful, upright napping in the haze of early morning. His bandages need to be changed and his wound is still rapidly seeping blood, even after a full day under Madame Chernot's care. She mutters and fusses over him, and finally doses him with absinthe to quiet him down. She casts worried eyes at Esme before turning to check on the other men.

Esme's thoughts flicker, not for the first time, back to Mr. Stoker. He's a doctor. If he were here, he could help.

The weariness and the stress of the last several days overtakes her for a moment, and she sags against the parlor door. The fact of the matter is she just wants him. Yes, for his medical skills, so he might save the lives of these men, but she wants him for herself. It's finally almost over. She can practically taste it in the air. And she's no closer to having him than she has been for the past two years; in fact, he's further away from her than he's ever been. For the first time, there is no appointment to keep, no assurance that she'll see him this week. And without a name, without something to go on, she very well might never see him again.

Desperation, of a kind she's unfamiliar with, bubbles up in her chest. Suddenly all of it, the war being waged on the streets, the chaos about to descend as the Germans give up and withdraw, closes in around her. She has to find him. Before the armies sweep in and scatter these ragtag Resistance soldiers to the wind. Before the retreating Germans take their final revenge on the victors. Anything can happen in the chaos of collapse, and Esme is suddenly panicked that she might lose him now, just when they are so close to the end.

Besides, she reasons with herself, they need a doctor for these men. Gaston's deteriorating state has made that an imperative. She's going to find him. Today.

"I'm going out," she announces from the parlor doorway.

Madame Chernot straightens up, wiping her hands on her apron. "Pardon?"

"I'm going to try and find a doctor for the men."

"Madame!" Tati breathes, "You could be killed out there! It's so dangerous!"

Esme shakes her head. "It must be done. Gaston needs a surgeon. I'm going to go find us one." As she's speaking, she's smoothing her dress, tucking back her flyaway hair. The city may be collapsing, but she won't go out of the house looking like a fright.

"Do be careful, dear," Madame Chernot says.

"Of course. Here. Keep the gun close. Don't open the door to anyone until I return."

Madame Chernot and Tati stand close together, hands clasped, nodding fearfully. Madame Chernot takes the gun and tucks it into her apron pocket.

"Right," Esme says, steeling herself. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

She brings nothing with her. Her identification papers, the special stamps of privilege her relationship with Hans afforded her, will do her no good at all now. So she heads out the door empty-handed. She has no idea where to start, in a city as vast as Paris, when there is a gunfight on every corner. In the end, she decides to go back to the beginning, back to Café Flore and Pierre and Charlotte. Maybe they know him or have heard of him.

She feels it immediately as she steps onto Boulevard St Germain, as if the very air is different. The urgent tension of the past few days has been replaced by something else. The barricades are still in place, but the Resistance fighters aren't cowering behind them anymore. They're sitting atop them, smoking, shouting to comrades, or they're busily trying to set the overturned trucks back upright and get them functional again. There are no gunshots from what used to be the German positions. She walks for blocks and doesn't encounter a single active gun battle. She passes a cluster of Resistance fighters in their stained and wrinkled street clothes, leading a Nazi soldier with his hands behind his head and a gun in his back. His face is stony and impassive.

Another block, and she sees the plumes of smoke rising across the Seine and to the West.

"What is that?" she asks one of the Resistance soldiers slouched on the ground against a barricade.

He shrugs dismissively. "They set the Grand Palais on fire yesterday. Seems like they're making a run for it."

"They're leaving?"

"Yes, haven't you heard?" The soldier perks up a bit at the exciting news he's about to impart. Esme just shakes her head. She's been up to her elbows with wounded men for the whole last day. She's heard no news since Alec left two nights ago. "The Resistance army has reached the city. They're in the western arrondisments now. And the Americans are nearly to the northern outskirts of the city. Word is, they'll be on the Champs Elysees by this afternoon!"

Esme thinks sadly for a moment about the lovely Grand Palais with its enormous domed glass roof. Such a shame to ruin something so beautiful. The noise and activity on the streets doesn't leave her time to mourn it, however, or to give much consideration to the soldier's news of troops in the city. She's on a mission.

The further she goes, the more chaotic the scene. Parisians are emerging from their homes in droves, emboldened by the cessation of gunfire and the lack of German soldiers on the streets. They're milling about the barricades with the Resistance fighters, passing bottles of wine and cheering.

It would be thrilling if she weren't so set on her course. She has to find him. Every moment that ticks by makes her more frantic.

By the time she reaches Café Flore, she has to push through the people on the street to reach the front door. The place has been closed up for days, ever since the strike started, but Pierre has hastily re-opened today, once people began to fill the streets. Half the chairs are still upended on tables. Pierre is laughing, hurriedly pulling them down, scooting them out, making room for the cluster of friends and loyal patrons who've clustered at the bar. Charlotte is there, rapidly pulling down glasses and pouring wine. She's harried but grinning ear to ear, calling out to friends in the bar as she works. The shouts and laughter echo off the high ceilings. Esme pushes through the jostling, celebratory crowd to reach the bar. Charlotte looks up and her face lights up at the sight of Esme.

"Esme! It's been so long! And to see you today of all days! Here, you must have some wine!"

Esme shakes her head absently. "I can't today, Charlotte. I'm looking for someone."

Charlotte laughs and casts her eyes around the café. "Looking for someone in this madness? Good luck! We've all spent so long hiding that I doubt you'll get this crowd to quiet down for days!"

Esme manages a weak smile as she looks around. Of course, these are all members of the Resistance. This is probably the first time many of them have been able to acknowledge each other openly in years. No wonder they are so exuberant.

"Charlotte, it's important," she murmurs.

At her tone, Charlotte's smile fades.

"Who are you looking for, Esme?"

"A man…" Esme stops and shakes her head, laughing humorlessly. "I don't have any idea how I'll find him. I've been meeting him, once a week…"

"So you did it then?" Charlotte murmurs.

"Yes. I've been working for the Resistance ever since that day I came to see you here. It was you who brought me to them."

"I knew it." Charlotte breathes. "I knew what they were saying about you just couldn't be true."

Esme flinches and holds up her hand. "I don't want to know what was said, whatever it is. But no, none of it was true. It was just…I did what I had to do. But it's done now and my contact…I have to find him, I just don't know where to look. I thought you might know."

"What's his name?"

Esme chuckles again. "I don't know. And he doesn't know mine. He felt it would be safest for both of us that way."

"You don't even know his name?" Charlotte's eyes are wide.

Esme shakes her head. "He's blond. And English."

Charlotte barks out a short, sharp laugh. "That's all you know, Esme? He's a blond Englishman?"

"Pardon, Madame," a voice murmurs to Esme's right. "But have we met?"

Esme turns to look. There is a dark-haired man there, clutching his empty wine glass. He seems to have come back to Charlotte for a refill and been distracted by their conversation. His face is faintly familiar, but Esme can't place it.

"Do I know you?" she asks.

"I think we may have…Pardon me, but did we meet at the market? One morning at the start of the war?"

Esme blinks rapidly. Yes, it's him. The man she met at the market, the one who sent her to St. Germain l'auxerrois. The man who sent her to _him_. He looks entirely different. He'd been so serious that day, his hat brim pulled low, his face set in stone. Today, like everyone else here, he's all smiles. She'd never have placed him if he hadn't remembered her first.

"I was just coming back to see Charlotte for some more wine and I couldn't help but overhear."

Esme reaches out and grasps his hand impulsively. "Do you know him? A tall blond Englishman? He's the one who met me in the church that day. The church you sent me to."

"I don't know who they sent to meet you. None of us knew more than we had to know. But a fair-haired Englishman? There aren't too many of them in Paris these days. It might be Carlisle, although I didn't know he was doing that sort of work."

A name. It might be_ his_ name. Esme's heart begins to pound with a tiny flicker of hope, the first she's allowed herself to indulge in for over two long years.

"Carlisle?" she repeats, her voice faint.

"Yes, Carlisle Cullen. He's been working at the American Hospital."

Esme clutches his hand tighter and closes her eyes against the wave of relief. Working at a hospital. It must be him. Who else? Carlisle Cullen.

"That's him," she breathes. "The American Hospital?"

Charlotte interjects then, "Pierre and I saw Dr. Jackson last night. He said he was heading down to the Quai Voltaire. There was a terrible fight there and lots of wounded men. He said he was taking any of the staff he could find to go help the wounded."

"Dr. Jackson?" Esme presses.

"Yes, he runs the American Hospital. Find him. If Carlisle is who you're looking for, he'll know where he is."

"I have to go," she murmurs, backing away.

"Good luck, Madame," the dark-haired man says. "Things are dangerous in that part of the city. Be careful."

"I'm getting quite used to that," Esme says with a faint smile.

"Come back and see me soon, Esme," Charlotte says. "I have a feeling you have a lot to tell me."

Esme smiles and nods before turning and pushing back through the rapidly-expanding crowd towards the door.

In the brief time she's been in the café, the streets have broken open into pandemonium. There are still soldiers, but ordinary Parisians have filled the streets, laughing, shouting to their neighbors, waving flags, waving handkerchiefs, celebrating with anything at hand. Every café has thrown open its doors like Café Flore, and music filters out of every open window. The Marsellaise. That's what she's hearing, Esme realizes. The Nazis outlawed the song during the Occupation, but now it pours forth, seemingly from every record player in Paris. People are singing along, laughing and crying at the same time, hugging each other. It's over, finally over.

Making progress through the crowds becomes increasingly difficult. Esme is jostled and shoved. People are celebrating, yes, but there are pockets, certain streets, where the celebration takes on an edge. Something frantic, aggressive, unpleasant, as if it will soon morph into something else. If she didn't have him…_Carlisle_…to find, she would retreat to the safety of her house. But that isn't an option today. She has to press on.

She rounds a corner and starts past Rue de Beaune when she hears it. Crying. Screaming, weeping sobs, coming from a woman. No, more than one woman.

Esme wants to keep going. She's almost to the Quai Voltaire, only another block. She wants to turn away and ignore it, but she can't. She has to know. She turns down Rue de Beaune. There is a crowd gathered half way down the block. No, not a crowd, a mob. She can scarcely get close, but after elbowing her way past clusters of shouting leering people, mostly men, she's able to see what's happening. They've got a group of girls there, working girls, prostitutes from one of the houses nearby. There are four of them. She doesn't know these girls specifically, but she knows what they are from the look of them. These girls have been working at one of the houses that catered to the Nazis. And now this mob of enraged Parisians has decided to make them pay for it.

One girl has her dress ripped open clean down the front, exposing her slip. Her hair has been chopped off crudely, down to her scalp in places. She's weeping, clutching handfuls of her shorn hair in her hands. One of the men in the front of the crowd has another girl by the hair and is chopping at hers, long brown strands of it falling to the sidewalk at her feet as she shrieks.

Esme has little sympathy for prostitutes, especially not ones who chose to take advantage of the Occupation by catering to their oppressors, but this scene revolts her. She understands the anger at the Germans, but this anger is misdirected. What these girls did was wrong, but what these Parisians are doing is worse. They are better than this. Or they should be, Esme thinks bitterly.

"Let that girl go, you animal," Esme says, not even aware she was going to intervene until the words have left her mouth.

Several men at the front of the crowd swivel to look at her in disbelief. Out of all these people standing and watching, not one has spoken out until now. They've only been cheered on in their malicious revenge.

"Who are you?" one of them growls at her.

"Just a Parisian, like you. And we are better than this," she says, waving a hand at the girl weeping at his feet.

"These girls are whores!" he shouts. Esme shudders. _That word_. "Filthy whores that fucked Nazis!"

"They fucked the men that paid them for it," Esme sighs. "The Nazis could afford it. Could you? They'd have happily fucked you if you had the money."

Several people in the crowd laugh at what she says which just makes the man with the scissors angry. Esme has made him look a fool and he doesn't like it.

"What business is this of yours, Madame? If you don't like it, just move along."

Esme opens her mouth to retort but she's cut off.

"It's no wonder she'd rush to their defense. She's one of them."

She knows that voice. Several people look to see who spoke and she can see him. It's Gérard. His clothes, so recently improved, are disheveled. His face is flushed. She's seen him enough in this state to recognize it for what it is; he's drunk.

"I should have known you'd find yourself right in the middle of the trouble, Gérard," she sneers.

"Always so high and mighty. You think you're above everyone but really you're no better than these girls."

"Oh, just go home and drink this off, Gérard, before you do something truly vile."

"Just who do you think you are?" he continues as if she hasn't spoken. "You're a whore, just like these girls. She's Colonel Dekker's whore!" he shouts to the crowd. The murmuring around her gets louder and Esme feels the beginning of unease. "Did he leave you behind when he fled Paris? You can hardly be surprised at that. After all, he's already gotten all he wanted out of you."

"You filthy little hypocrite!" she shouts at him. "You've been working for them as their pathetic little errand boy for a year now, selling secrets about your neighbors! You think I didn't know that? And now you stand here and accuse these girls of exactly what you yourself are guilty of!"

"You lying whore!" Gérard has crossed the little opening in the crowd in a flash and he's seized her by the arm. Esme is caught off-guard. In all the times he's been insulting and lewd, he's never once tried to touch her. But she sees what's happened. She's provoked him and nearly unmasked him. Ever the opportunist, as soon as his beloved Nazis fled the city, he turned on them and now leads the mob calling for their heads. Anything it takes to save his own filthy, pathetic skin.

"I know who Colonel Dekker is," one of the men in the crowd murmurs. "Quite the big man, he was."

"Well, this woman has been his whore for two years!" Gérard shouts, shaking her by the arm.

"Let me go, you pig! You know nothing about what I've done for two years!"

"Don't you dare try to explain it away!" Gérard sneers, his face close to hers. He smells sour, stale alcohol. The crowd is pushing in closer. The girl with her hair half-shorn is cowering away now that Esme has become their focus. She is surrounded, she realizes. If they choose to attack her the way they have these girls, she will be at their mercy. "You act so superior!" Gérard continues, "All this time, all these years, turning up your nose like you're so fine. And really the whole time you're just the same as these girls, giving it up if the price is right."

"Take your hands off of me, Gérard," she says again, with less strength, as she begins to be afraid. She looks around for a friendly face in this crowd, one sane person to put a stop to this lunacy. But the same mania, the same frantic vindictiveness has seized them all. They want their revenge on their oppressors and they'll take it out any way they can.

Gérard shoves her back and she stumbles, half-falling to the pavement. She catches herself with one hand and stays down. Gérard crouches next to her, his sweaty face right in hers, and extends a hand. "Hand me those shears, man. This whore needs to be taught a lesson the same as the others."

Esme shrinks back and twists, trying to free her arm, to no avail. She's terrified and furious all at the same time. She's helpless in the face of these people, and she despises that feeling and hates them for making her feel powerless.

"Take your hands off of her."

She would know that voice anywhere. But hearing it now, it seems an impossibility. He can't be here, now.

"Just turn around, friend. This doesn't concern you," Gérard says at the man that Esme can't see from where she lays, making no move to release her.

"It concerns me more than you know. I said release her, or I can't be responsible for what happens to you."

The crowd shifts again, moving to watch as Gérard faces off with this new player in this little street drama. It's him. He's rumpled and dusty and exhausted, streaks of dried blood on the cuffs of his rolled up sleeves, but it's him. Carlisle Cullen.

"She's just a filthy whore, collaborating with the Nazis. And she's about to get what's coming to her," Gérard snarls at him.

Carlisle takes a forceful step towards them and the crowd instinctively shrinks back, cowering in the face of the anger radiating off him.

"This woman is a war hero. She's saved the lives of countless Allied soldiers," Carlisle says, pointing an imperious finger at Esme.

"What the hell are you talking about? She's just some General's doxie."

"She's been working with the Resistance, you idiot! Spying on them! Now let her go!"

Gérard's hand releases her arm instinctively, but he doesn't back away from her.

"A spy? That's hardly likely," Gérard says, "And how would you know this, my friend?"

"Because I've been her contact for two years. She's met me to pass on what she heard from the Nazis."

The crowd falls absolutely silent. They look from Carlisle to Esme, still fallen back on the pavement. Gérard, ever the quick-thinking rodent, senses the shift in sympathies and leans back away from Esme.

Carlisle steps forward again until he's within arms' reach before he reaches a hand out to her. Esme stares up at him, at his beautiful, tired face. She's wanted him for so long and now he's finally here before her, and under such despicable circumstances. But her relief at his presence is enough to drown out everything else, the murmuring of the mob around her, the still-weeping girls, the curses of Gérard. None of it matters. Only this man standing in front of her.

She reaches out her hand and his fingers close around it. He reaches down with his other hand and braces under her elbow, gently helping her to her feet. Once she's standing before him, finally eye to eye, Esme is overcome with relief and throws herself at him. He catches her, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her body up against his, her feet off the ground. The feel of him, warm and real and solid…after all this time, Esme can barely believe he's finally in her arms, that her cheek is pressed against the slightly scratchy skin of his neck, that her fingertips are brushing his hair at the nape of his neck. All the small, intimate parts of him that she feared she'd never know.

"Are you alright?" he murmurs into her hair. She can't speak, she's too overcome with emotion, so she just nods. After a few moments, he releases her just enough to set her feet back down, but he keeps her close, just a breath of air between them.

"A spy?" Gérard can't seem to let it go. His long-standing denied lust for Esme urges him on past the point of caution. "Sounds like you might have sampled her favors, too, and now you're just sniffing around for more."

Carlisle turns to look at him and his face is murderous. "This woman is a hero of France. The bombing of the munitions factory in Tours? The Allies knew where to strike because of information provided by her. They were warned that the Germans were coming to El Alamein because she told them."

The crowd murmurs amongst themselves and Gérard is momentarily silenced.

"Is that true?" Esme breathes.

Carlisle looks back to her. "Yes. And that's just two that I know about. Countless others. We'll never know exactly how much you've done to get us here today."

Esme wants to weep in relief. It wasn't for nothing. All of it, every hated moment with Hans, every painful meeting with Carlisle, it mattered. It made a difference. He sees the emotion crowding her face and rubs her arms gently before turning back to the crowd.

"We've all suffered at the hands of these monsters, and for far too long. But I suggest that you all turn your attention to the real culprits and leave these girls alone. There's still a lot of work to do to rebuild this country. Save your energy for that and leave the revenge to others."

Carlisle's words added to everything else they've just witnessed seems to have taken the blood-lust out of the crowd, and they slowly start to filter away. The four girls have already vanished, escaping while the mob was distracted.

Gérard turns to leave in the crowd, but Esme calls out to him.

"I won't forget this, Gérard. And I know exactly what you did for the Nazis. Don't ever forget that. I suggest you go home and help your mother. There are roadblocks that need to be cleared. Why don't you make yourself useful for once?"

He shoots her a murderous glare, but says nothing. He just turns away and melds into the crowd. In moments, Rue de Beaune is nearly deserted. As the adrenaline from the confrontation finally ebbs, Esme feels nearly weak in the knees. Carlisle's hands are still on her arms, and she reaches up to place hers on his shoulders, looking up into his cherished, longed-for face.

"I can't believe I found you," he says softly, raising a hand to cup her face.

"I was looking for you."

"I've been helping with the injured."

"I should have known you would be." Esme can't help but smile fondly at him.

"I'm Carlisle," he says with an awkward smile. It's an odd thing to be exchanging introductions after all they've become to each other.

Esme smiles back. "I know. Someone told me today."

"Tell me your name."

"Esme," she says.

"Esme," he breathes, trying it out.

"Carlisle," she returns, sampling the name she intends to say every day for the rest of her life.

They stand for an age, just staring at each other in the middle of the deserted street. Finally he simply says, "Come," before he takes her hand and leads her the rest of the way down Rue de Beaune to the Quai.

The crowds are streaming past them, over the bridge to the Right Bank. From the passing chatter, they can gather that the American troops have entered the city from the north and are making their way toward the Arc de Triomphe. A spontaneous sort of parade seems to be underway, and all of Paris is packing in along the Champs Elysees to welcome the Americans. But Carlisle and Esme ignore it and let all the people pass them by.

By the time they reach the quai, it's nearly empty. The barricades are still there, looking out of place and forlorn with no fighters to man them. The ground is littered with debris: spent rifle casings, burnt paper, Nazi flags torn from the buildings and trampled underfoot. Carlisle and Esme pick their way around it to the edge of the quai, where Carlisle finds a cluster of folding chairs stolen from some nearby café. He lowers Esme into one and then wearily collapses into the other himself.

For a moment they just look at each other, sitting side by side, grasping hands. Then Esme lowers her head to his shoulder and lets herself, for the first time in over two years, rely on someone. Carlisle just holds her, and holds her together. There is still much to face. Injured men at home in need of Carlisle's medical care, Paris needing to be repaired and rebuilt, Esme's reputation to be re-established, and in the far-off future a year down the road, a trip to Nuremberg to testify against Hans Dekker for crimes against humanity. All of it looms in their future, but for a few minutes in the late afternoon sunlight, they just allow themselves to _be_, just two lovers sitting by the Seine, embracing. It's then, as the sun stretches long and flickers across the water, when Carlisle takes her face in his hands and for the very first time, but by no means the last, he finally kisses the woman he loves.


End file.
